Shadowdark General Thread [+]

That page is intriguing. Can you translate some of it for those who have never seen mythic bastionland? Like, how do the omens and portents work? How do they interact with Sir Wayland? How is the hazard "wild dogs" when there is a wyvern?
I'm summarize. Basically, everything on the page are ingredients for that hex. Some belong to a core 'narrative', in this case the wyvern and her young, but others are less indexed and more freeform. Sir Wayland's most obvious use is as a dim but charming monster hunter who's after the Wyvern, and that's why I added his squires ot the omens, to sort of tie those two togther, but Wayland could also be used a seperate encounter. The omen and portents themselves are something like the a countdown. When you're in that hex choices and actions by the PCs will sometimes leave an obvious opening to deploy an omen, as a sign of things to come if you like. There's no set order and no need to use all six, but they are supposed to fit together loosely. The Features at the bottom aren't directly linked to the main theme, but are jsimply evocative bits from the same hex that you can weave in for whatever reasons suit your fancy.

In Mythic Bastionland these pages are celled Myths, and one function there is that people outside the hex know about them and will relate that to interested PCs. Local types will know about the closest Myth (direction and name anyway), while adventurers or travelers might know about any one myth anywhere, and sages probably know everything about most myths. That gives you lots of easy narrative handholds and the PCs get some idea about what information various people are likely to have (which is always a plus).

Edit: From a practical layout standpoint everything you need to run the hex is all one one page, including stats, so there's no flipping around looking for stuff. Well, there might be if you also use random encounters, but not for the legend content. :)
 
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We're in the age of self publishing, there's someone doing everything badly somewhere, but that's got nothing to do with 'ethical'. There's no ethical dimension to using public domain art whatsoever. What's left is you talking about what you like and don't like. Just so we're all clear.
Agreed. AI is a tool and can be used poorly, just like when Photoshop and Poser first appeared; so much quick and easy and TERRIBLE material was produced. But the people who knew what they were doing used these tools seamlessly without making it obvious.

Public Domain art is quite expansive and just like anything else, it can be used "quick and lazy" or more carefully and well. I prefer when people like Mork Borg use Gustav Doré's works but tweak them and adapt them rather than just pasting the cover of Paradise Lost on a full page spread. Eh.

I still have some "digital art" magazines from the early 2000s. YIKES people were just figuring out stuff like the clone stamp and were using it all over the place, so you'd get professional concept art or cover art with the same clouds and trees copied over and over and it looked cheap and lazy.
 


My very first by-hand digital dungeon level. After many false starts.

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With a tip of the cap to Mork Borg, I think I have a dungeon page layout I'm happy with. I'm straying away from what the 'standard' SD dungeon looks like a little as I have some (I suppose) slightly different design goals. I'm trying to achieve a less cluttered and more accessible page layout. So all the fonts are 12 and 14 pt and I'm trying to leave lots of white space.

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