Deities & Demigods & Damned Decent Drawings

[Mark CMG]

So, I had noticed that Jeff Dee, artist extraordinaire, well-known for his fine D&D illustrations among many other things, was putting together some kickstarter projects of old Deities & Demigods artwork -

Re-Creating my Norse Art from Deities & Demigods by Jeff Dee — Kickstarter

And I mentioned in passing on Facebook that it was very nice of WotC to allow him to put forth such projects like this and his Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits artwork and more, and he in turn said that it is very commendable of them, and I agree as I'm sure we all do. And on the kickstarter project page he mentions -

This project is the third installment of my ongoing effort to re-create my old TSR / Dungeons & Dragons artwork – which was reportedly destroyed* by some thoughtless functionary to make room in TSR’s files. Last time, I re-created 16 drawings that I did for the 1980 AD&D module Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits! This time around, I’m re-creating my artwork from the Norse chapter of the original 1980 edition of the AD&D book called ‘Deities and Demigods’. Eventually, I plan to make a whole collection my re-created TSR illustrations available as an art book.

Then I also noted that Diesel LaForce has a similar project here -

Re-creating Norse Gods Mythos Art from Deities and Demigods by Diesel LaForce Updates — Kickstarter

And I got to thinking, considering the re-release of the 1E core books (which had not come about yet when I first saw these projects and mentioned the above), could this also portend the re-release of some other older materials for which WotC would need this artwork to be recovered/redone? I've had no confirmation, and wouldn't dream of asking directly since if true there would probably be an NDA involved and I wouldn't want to put anyone on the spot, but it is interesting to speculate, as we all know.

Anyway, jump in on the kickstarter projects and help get these things done for their own sake but maybe we'll be seeing even more come of this, and if so we'll know we were in on the ground floor and able to be a big part of it all.

 

[Stormonu]

It would certainly be nice, but considering WotC's backing, I seriously doubt they would have needed kickstarters to get the project going. It's more likely if WotC had plans to say, reissue Q1, I'd imagine they would have either contracted the original artists directly or, were it for 5E, contracted new images.

It does make me wonder though - if Jeff & Diesel are having to recreate their art, that means the only artwork they have for the 1E reprints is probably scans from the original book. I wonder if that will have an affect on the quality of those images?

 

[Mark CMG]

It would certainly be nice, but considering WotC's backing, I seriously doubt they would have needed kickstarters to get the project going. It's more likely if WotC had plans to say, reissue Q1, I'd imagine they would have either contracted the original artists directly or, were it for 5E, contracted new images.

My conjecture would be that allowing the kickstarter projects is a way to sweeten the pot for artists they would likely have a hard time contracting for high enough to get them to revisit older projects. These guys have other contracts they could be taking I would suppose. Doing totally new images would likely lessen the nostalgic impact of any reprinted releases.

It does make me wonder though - if Jeff & Diesel are having to recreate their art, that means the only artwork they have for the 1E reprints is probably scans from the original book. I wonder if that will have an affect on the quality of those images?

One of the sometimes vocalized criticisms of the PDFs of older materials made available was that they were merely scans and not of great quality (no offense to Jim Butler who had limited facilities, time and budget to make those scans). If they were planning to do reprints "right for you guys and for Wizards" as Mike Mearls recently said, I'd imagine, with the old files lost, new reditions of the original artwork would need to be secured.

Again, all just conjecture.

 

[Upper_Krust]

I really want to be one of the backers but it doesn't seem to allow you to pay through paypal.

I'd love to buy a reprinted Deities & Demigods with the new art.

I'm actually writing (almost certainly for my own personal pleasure) Deities & Demigods 2 with the missing Pantheons (plus expansions to the old Pantheons), rules for Immortals in AD&D and the inhabitants of various Planes (like a monster section for Immortals) such as the Plane of Entropy etc. Basically the book I always wanted to write but the current system never really permitted it. God knows when I'll get that finished, its just something I spend an hour or two on now and again to unwind.

 

[Treebore]

I really want to be one of the backers but it doesn't seem to allow you to pay through paypal.

I'd love to buy a reprinted Deities & Demigods with the new art.

I'm actually writing (almost certainly for my own personal pleasure) Deities & Demigods 2 with the missing Pantheons (plus expansions to the old Pantheons), rules for Immortals in AD&D and the inhabitants of various Planes (like a monster section for Immortals) such as the Plane of Entropy etc. Basically the book I always wanted to write but the current system never really permitted it. God knows when I'll get that finished, its just something I spend an hour or two on now and again to unwind.

Certainly sounds like a cool project.

 

[mikelaff]

Jeff Dee stopped by the podcast the other day to talk about this Kickstarter, share some stories from the old days at TSR and talk about some other projects (Cavemaster and Villains and Vigilantes.

You can check it out here

 

[Upper_Krust]

Howdy Treebore!

Certainly sounds like a cool project.

Well it occured to me that if I wanted to do something like this in 4th Edition (a system I really love) that it would take about 800+ pages of work...and as such I'd never, ever get it finished.

Whereas in 1E, with its condensed format, the whole thing would take about 100 pages. I mean Deities & Demigods managed to squeeze most of the Pantheons into about 6 pages (double that for the extensive Greek and Norse Pantheons).

I'm toying with the idea of introducing a few 4E-isms into the format (like clearer attacks; rechargeable actions and Standard/Move/Minor actions; Action Points etc.), but I haven't implemented them yet.

Plus I think you can free up more space by removing redundant lines like:

THIEF/ASSASSIN: Nil
MONK/BARD: Nil
PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil
etc.

I already had a few formulas for super-quick Immortal Monster rules using really fast Divinity Templates. Where you would just multiply the hit points and damage of an existing 1E monster.

i.e. Rakshasa = 7 HD, The rakshasa deity RAVANA is a greater god (x6 multiplier) so he has 42 HIT DICE or 336 hit points. Damage is 3d6+14/3d6+14/3d8+14

i.e. Fire Giant = 11+5 HD, Surtur is an Intermediate God (x4 multiplier) so he has 44+20 HIT DICE or 372 hit points and deals 20d6+14 damage.

The above creates some interesting results but gets broken if the Hit Dice of the monster is to low to begin with. Plus the Hit Dice multipliers don't work with class levels, so still a few things to iron out.

Anyway, I don't want to derail the thread. Good luck to Jeff and Dave with the projects.