the Art of Edath

Nuko on the horizon

2010-07-05T18:01:00.004+01:00

In the wilds of Edath dwell an old Faction. Once of the Cerchae region the Nuko spread out after the Cerchae themselves settled into the area, for many homesteads were destroyed in a great quake and those clans found themselves displaced.

Using their predictive arts of Hinjeke, many Nuko augered a migration and so they set out to inhabit other regions, some clans travelling for many, many miles before settling once more.

They came into contact with other cultures over the years and not all contact was peaceful, not that all Nuko clans were ever peaceful, with rivalries and animosities breaking out into bloody conflict many times in history, when the Hinjeke sticks indicated that this was the course forward.

The martial arts of the Nuko began foremost as defensive and the role of the Nuko Thorns follows this tradition.

The Thorns are armed with both scythe and spears, the spears being pushed into the ground before them to aid in combating mounted adversaries and forming a spear-hedge.

Of all Nuko they are the closest Troop type to forming into formation - Nuko are more guerilla fighters and fight loosely, in skirmishing units.

Anyone with the War Unleashed book will have had a preview of colour Nuko art as they make an appearance in the colour plates.

With the next card expansion we'll be providing the Nuko at last and tying them into your games of war and adventure, even if as passing threats at first. The Thorns are top of the list as it stands.

Alongside the card art, i've been working on the Figatures to accompany the cards. I'm enjoying the fact of introducing a new species and culture to the mix - working on these new Factions is as cool as i hope you'll find descovering them as we release them. It won't be too long now - thanks for your patience.

Edath Architecture

2010-05-11T21:25:00.002+01:00

In War Unleashed there is a picture showing the architecture of three of the Countries of the Dzaa Empire. I thought i would give you some detail and insight into the buildings shown.

Looking at the picture here, as found in War Unleashed, on the left hand side we find the fat towers of the Piri, a culture that builds on the hills of a great savanna. The large towers are rounded or domed and can vary in size depending on the size and power of the family group. The structures date many years into the past and may are older than anyone can recall - certainly older by far than the Dzaa Empire on Edath, which has been around for over three hundred years.

Mud and stone form the building material of the Piri towers and for the most part the techniques used to raise them have been lost, modern counterparts being much smaller and compact.

Doorways and windows and halls are overly large for the Piri inhabitants and many halls lie empty - which it seems was always the intent. The rooms are therefore spacious and spread out within the towers.

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The middle of the picture above shows some Cerchae buildings built onto and into a tor side. A curving bridge arcs over the lip of a waterfall which drains a great lake high up on the tor. The lake is itself fed by a stream from higher up.

Rooves are commonly of thatch, sometimes of tile, and though the walls are mostly of stone, some wattle and daubing as exists. Breaking up the stonework are wooden beams, even where not exactly neccessary they often exist, such as in halls cut into the hillside.

Curving walls are a common feature in the old architecture, which like the Piri is over large. More recent additions to towns tend to be smaller in scope and more compact and often old spaces have been converted to house many more than they would have centuries ago.

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The last picture in the above illustration shows the tall towers of the Zeir, a country who live on the cliffs and banks of the rivers and estuaries of a great semi-desert in the middle west of the Empire. The towers are carved of stone, sometimes whole, other times of impossibly large segments. They incorporate gardens and allow for foliage to grow among, over and in them selectively - the Zeir are a botanically minded peoples, the banks of the rivers being lush.

Smaller buidings are domed, sometimes with rooms built over vaulted and open ground floors. These domes can encircle a courtyard, with straight enclosed passages connecting them. The large towers often have vaulted docks beneath them so that the rivers are directly accessible.

Outsides of buildings are commonly more intricate in their texture than for other countries of the Empire, with reliefs and regular forms used proflifically over the walls. Sometimes parts of these are painted, othertimes different coloured stone is inlaid.

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A common feature of architecture that predates the Dzaa Invasion is the largeness of it. This is often attributed to the granduer and ego of the Old Gods of these cultures. Some say that the Old Gods were themselves of greater stature than the subjugated species of Qai, Kes, Kro, Cur and so forth, and when they had the structures built they built them to cater for their size.

Three is the Magic Number

2010-04-26T21:23:00.006+01:00

Yes it is. It's the magic number...

I hope you've all been busy downloading the new Figatures from warriorelite.com.

We had alot of fun deciding on the exact presentation of the Figature Units. What size to do them at, what to use for stands, etc.

The issue of standing them up, ie how the bases would be, was the most interesting, starting complicated and finally ending up with a workable base that's effective simplicity at its best.

We thought about plastic bases - but they're not downloadable, as far as we could tell, without the aid of one of those particle guns from Tron that is. And most people don't have one of those.

We then thought through various paper bases that one could slot the Figatures into, which were complex affairs involving alot of fiddly folding and slotting or glueing.

At the end we realised a simple fold-out base worked splendidly. So there you have it.

Why three guys? Why not five?

We had in mind five guys in a front rank per card as an arbitrary figure around which to build the stats. When it came to the Figatures, five was too many to have in a rank and still be an acceptable size. As it turns out, three is the magic number. There are three Troop Cards in a rank in the average set up, so it seemed logical to carry that onto the Terrain Maps via the Figatures. And thus there were three.

Except when they didn't fit cos they were too large - ie cavalry. So then there were two - it's all representative at the end of the day. For the mega cavalry, there's just the one, but they is large with five dudes on top, so i think that's okay.

As you can see from this new Figature Unit here there are three Blunberbuss Troops = one rank. We went for the mirror image so that you each player can see the proper image. The other option was to have a silhuette on the reverse side, but that would make it hard fro one of the players to see where their Troops were and make the battlefield look odd.

Well, it's Masters next, amongst other things. Combat Masters to be precise.

Rise of the Figatures

2010-04-13T15:47:00.014+01:00

Well, thanks for popping by. I hope you enjoyed reading the backstory of how the following little dudes came to be.

If you missed it you can check it out in the Game Design section of the Warriorelite forums at

warriorelite forum

The anatomy of a Figature

As usual, it starts with a sketch. While this wasn't the hardest part, i did have to know what i was doing.

I'll be showing you a Dzaa Cavalry, so you can compare the look to that which appears on a Troop card.

As you can perhaps see, the proportions are somewhat different. Miniatures are sculpted with an exaggerated anatomy that works for miniatures but looks abit strange in illustrations - no names mentioned. Certain appendages are larger and detail is simpler. One reason for this is so that it can be seen easily at the smaller size.

We decided to use this same principle in creating the look of the Figatures, as using the standard anatomy as seen in art so far would have been harder to see. This style of art is also seen in the Faction banners in the War Unleashed book.

The sketch becomes more fully fleshed out before final simplification as above.

As you can see, there are two mateys. In an infantry Unit there are three guys in the front rank and so there are three figature individuals used to represent this. For cavalry, there just isn't the room to have this when using them on the Terrain Maps, to be bluntly honest. And making the Terrain Maps larger would have made them unwieldy.

For the following progression i'll stick to one cavalry individual.

Here, the basic linework is done. This gives weight to the lines and cleans it all up for scanning in and further work, which will definitely be needed before the figature can be easily seen when made smaller.

At this stage i add shadow and give more weight to the form with the use of black areas and line thickening, building on the linework that is already there and simplifying the look to make it easier to see.

It's now ready for colouring.

Again, to keep things simple, a 'flat' colour look was used. Adding further shadowing with deeper colour, or adding textures would overcomplicate the image, so i avoided this, though the temptation was great - up until i viewed it at its small size and totally appreciated the need for simplicity (though with enough detail to give character to the figature.)

So there you go. I hope you enjoyed this little trip into the backstory of a figature.

Ash

the Dzaa Empire strikes - back cover

2010-03-29T21:09:00.004+01:00

So i thought you might like to see what's on the back cover of War Unleashed. Not the barcode or the ISBN but the little bit of artwork.

We decided that we wanted an epic army shot, with units coming out of the smoke and mist and with a familiar Dzaa Master at the fore. Something to show a few of the troops that'll one day be available on cards to bring to the field, whether the battle be over grass, water or in the Underearth.

Well. To the point then. Here it is ...

The Factions of Edath

2010-03-08T21:46:00.006Z

The Empire of the Dzaa takes under its wing the old lands of cultures that have become known as the Countries.

The lands span from the cavern-riddled mountains and foothills of the north-east where sky-pirates roam, through the waterlogged lands of the northern rebels to the west and down the mainland coast to arid semi-desert and river deltas where desert partisans wreak havoc on the Empire's loyal clans. From here the land turns to savanna and hills further south, home to weaponsmiths and hunters of great renown, the Empire's lands ending in a line of mountains before which stand four mighty Dzaa fortresses.

Within this territory lie expanses of wilderness, broken by the islands of civilisation.

When the Huaos-Dzaa invaded many years ago they subdued the settled cultures. But some denizens of the old world escaped to the wilds, forming new Factions to carry on the traditions of the Old Ways and to fight the invaders. These became the rebel Factions.

But the rebel bands are not the only unconquered cultures to traverse or inhabit the wild places. Old races live outside of the Dzaa's immediate control, sometimes proving worthy allies, sometimes bloodsworn enemies.
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The book 'War Unleashed' introduces these Factions, giving information on their territories, their Faiths and livelihoods.

Prominant among the Factions are the Conquering Dzaa themselves, the rebel Ang, the marauding Chune, the hidden Nuko and the minions of evil - the Suqoya.

Who do the Chune follow and why do they attack all civilised cultures?
What are the meaning of Suqoya tattoos?
How do the Saha travel so far across Edath undetected to smuggle their wares?
Who are the last descendants of the Heroes of Old who were cast down by the Dzaa in the Year of Invasion?

These questions and much more are answered in the pages of War Unleashed.

Mapping Edath

2010-02-15T19:52:00.010Z

The map of Edath is perhaps the oldest surviving part of the world of Edath, in terms of the creation and development of the gameworld over the years. Goes back to 1992 give or take a year.

It's changed little, and what changes were made have been somewhat changed back close to the original form. The only thing to really refine it has been closer thinking to the climate zones, the major terrain features like mountains and the position of the moons and suns (never on the map in the first place). I've thought about prevailing winds and tides as well as how a flat world would work.

Though this level of detail doesn't make the War Unleashed book, a map that shows the location of cultures as well as the major climate zones does. Part of which looks like this.

It's a shame it has to be black and white, but we're an independant fledgling company and can't throw around the kind of budget that the big companiess do. As it happens the book still looks fantastic, even if we do say so ourselves.

In putting the final touches ot the map i got to thinking about compass directions. Now, while NESW appear as Westerners would expect (in playing Mah Jongg we found the compass went NWSE clockwise, which is kinda cool) i had another thought and so ended up refining an aspect of the world involving True North, the magnetic north. You'll have to read the book to see what i mean specifically, but we felt it enhances the world. It's funny how some things just slot into place as you go along.

The hardest part of making the map wasn't actually in the main map, it was in the Country illustrations where we wanted to show their location on a mini-map. I tried borders with lines to fill the area in, shades of grey and dots, but they didn't quite work. In the end i opted for something really obvious, which you can see below.

It's been fun getting into the details and when we put that detail into books later down the line i look forward to fleshing out the comprehensive notes and adding further detail to the world.

War Unleashed offers a damn good introduction.I've just finished scanning through it page by page and the depth of Edath really does shine through. I sincerely hope you get a kick out of it.

Illuminating the Warring Factions

2010-02-01T19:47:00.000Z

Our first book release, War Unleashed, will have as part of its content information about the world of Edath.

We’ll be divulging a little of the history leading up to the current state of affairs as well as taking you on a tour of the world as it stands.

After many years of conquest the Dzaa have once again to deal with uprisings and rebels and other Factions testing their borders.

To illustrate these Factions and Countries in the book we have now, I took an old idea we had and updated it.

Ages ago, as in years, we were putting together a book which was the Edath RPG. It was still in the playtesting stage before being introduced to the market with the tactical wargame taking the first steps. Actually, come to think about it, it was four books. One of which gave details of the world. In illustrating the cultures I put together some pictures that showed the architecture, environment and sometimes the Gods of the cultures in a semi-design-like style, like sketch versions of tapestries, sort of.

This format wouldn’t fit in the new book (the above illu is cropped along the top and the left) and many of the cultures have been refined aswell since then so those old pictures are archive material now. But they gave me a good place to start.

The space I have to work with is a little less than before, but what I came up with is somewhat similar.

It's more design led, showing more clearly certain distinct things, rather than an ambling landscape (which is still nice for its part)

These are old and new Faction illustrations for comparison. As each Faction is represented on the website they'll get a banner illustration, also inspired by the old archived landscape style and closer to the old style than the book illustrations. You can see the Ang and Dzaa ones online at this time (the Nuko, Chune and Qoya have incomplete, sketchy ones which will get finished as they get released in game form).

As you can see, the old had no airimal aircraft, instead having a balloon type craft. This is because airimals didn’t exist back then (early 90s). What the new one shows is the attire of the faction aswell as cultural icons (like airships or such), not just the environment.

So in less space you actually get more for your buck, though I bet you’ll be pleased to hear that we’re not charging a dollar per illustration included in the book as that would make it rather expensive.

Unleashing the art of Unleashed

2010-01-18T17:29:00.000Z

SneakPeek for the Avid Geek
I hope you think it’s great, not weak
Your thoughts about it, please do speak (well, write, anyway)

Following is a look at the ‘War Unleashed’ book's front cover art. I’ve concentrated on the central image whose pose may be familiar to anyone who owns the base game.

There were a number of considerations on the cover art. One is that we would prefer to have a generic image from Edath rather than any one faction taking centre stage. Jemimah (Huaos-Dzaa warrior with pepperbox pistol) served her purpose well, but as we progress forward the books will tend to have diverse content that applies to more than one culture or species (bar any Faction books we may do). We already have that in the cards, with Stratagems, Terrain and Conflicts having Vaechi or Fiadrytch on them rather than a mortal species.

While this is true, we wanted people to recognise that ‘War Unleashed’ accompanies ‘War for Edath: the Beginning’, and any future War Decks, such as for the upcoming Nuko. Thus the black background. We also were aware, from the feedback of our survey, that the conflict card illustrations were liked alot (probably as they’re more humanoid than the mastery vaechi and thus easier to make out) and so we thought a look similar to that would be good.

Forefront on my attention was the need to have a striking cover that was original amongst other games and books and still satisfied the ‘Edath’ look.

In the end I composed the following sketch:

You can see I also brought in another element to the overall look, being the skeletal remnants of a snaking airimal creature in the background.

From here I took the steps as seen in the above progression picture for the entire illustration, evolving the colour look as I went along, having it in mind to make it bright and ‘shiney’.

With text added, the end result looks a lot like this:

Right now, I’m working on illustrations for the inside of the book, specifically for the factions themselves. I may even look at those in the next post.

the Art of the Illuminator

2010-01-10T19:28:00.000Z

What does it take to illuminate a world?

There’s alot of archive material - boxes of it actually. Stuff that is basically the journey of species, cultures, creatures, buildings, landscapes and various other aspects of what has come to be called Edath. It's a fantasy world that tips its hat to well-known and loved fantasy, mythology, legend and folklore but leaves them there to explore terra incognita instead and lay bare an unknown fantasy universe of our own devising.

World building is alot of fun and alot of work. Alot of work. But alot of fun(!)

Over time in this blog, such as to satisfy demand, I may show some of the archive material, but for the main herein I intend to show glimpses of things in the wings, things to come. Sketches and the like. Works in progress. The progression of artworks into the final thing. The thinking and the process behind it all.

I hope you’ll follow along. (and remember to turn the page when R2 beeps like, well, R2. (Mmm - memories of read-a-long starwars books….))

Along with these sketches and finished articles I’d like to offer further insight into the world of Edath and will probably accompany sketches etc with notes on where they fit in to the world as a whole, as well as other tidbits of info that may prove interesting.

So what’s up for 2010?

Besides throwing the equivalent of a monolith at the monkeys in terms of gameplay, that is.

In our first book release, War Unleashed, there’ll be an overview of the world, with perhaps some history and info on the cultures of the Empire. It’s a good grounding and you should come out of it wiser. The cover is what I’m working on at the mo.

I’ve got a comic in the works with a more atmospheric look that suits my particlular style better.

There’s the Nuko Faction, being the first of many to join the Ang and Dzaa in battle, followed by others.

I have also put pencil to paper to illustrate a new twist on an old idea which is fast becoming integrated into Edath’s mythology but good.

So if you follow along you’ll get a sneak-peek at upcoming releases and see all sorts of stuff that just won’t appear anywhere else.

Welcome to the world of Edath!