D&D 5E Toward a new D&D aesthetics

[BRayne]

Is the blue lady an orc or a horc? She looks awesome.

Water Genasi with Orc parents

 

[Vaalingrade]

Water Genasi with Orc parents

There are implications in terms of both worldbuidling and species design to this that I am in love with.

But they should have kept her grey.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think it does. Innocence and softness are lovely, but they hardly work as a default in a world wherein a huge population survives via predation.

Innocence and “softness” aren’t required for wholesomeness and kindness, nor even for cuteness. Further who is the population surviving via predation?

But regardless of that answer, how on earth does building a world wherein kindness and wholesomeness are commonplace trivialize anything?

Where's the gentler, wholesome, cute vibe in those subclass pics? I'm not seeing the softer side of Sears here.

Seriously. Different artists, yes.

Really? Especially when contrasted with the other piece (non D&D granted) linked? I mean... again. I'm not saying you have to see it, but I dont see how its even a question.

Especially when the Tiefling is literally a love letter to everything I've bee saying from Palette to expression, to the flower tattoos, and the human (?) at bottom left couldnt be less threatening unless he had a trail of happy tears coming down his cheek.

Compared to...well even this?

Other than clearly a different artist…no?

Heck the middle dude is smirking like a dweeb.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I swear some of y’all have never had a “soft murder boy” in your party and it shows.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Does a 'huge' segment actually survive by predation?

Sure, they did in Points of Light, but that world concept got smothered in its bed and buried in a shallow serial killer mound.

So we've got 'traditional' D&D worlds which as far as I can tell is mostly farmers who can't handle the rats in their basement or the goblins and kobolds in the kills who still die to a stiff breeze. Even kings with whole armies still rely on roving bands of psychpaths killing their opposition for them.

So yeah, modern and traditional D&D folks are softer than the inside of a build-a-bear. That's why you the band of psychopaths who don't belong have to murder people to save it.

Only now the designers are understanding not even the protagonists of D&D settings have to be shield-gnawing blood enthusiasts.

 

[Gnarlo]

Wait until he finds out Gelato isn't Vegan.

 

[Fifth Element]

Love me some Dee.

 

[Fifth Element]

View attachment 154398
Wait until he finds out Gelato isn't Vegan.

Or, you know, chicken.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Actually, a similar thing happened in Nordic Archeology. After the chemical analysis of the viking period textiles came in, everyone was shocked by how colorful the clothes were, solid bold colors from every hue of the spectrum! Judging by the jewely colors, the shift toward vibrant colors happened just before the viking period.

I'm fairly sure people were trying, as much as they could, to make use of bright, saturated colors as early as Hellenic Greece, if not earlier. There's a reason dyes like indigo--which produce a deep, vivid, colorful cloth--were so valuable to the ancients. Certainly by the medieval period, there were both local (less-expensive) and transcontinental (more-expensive) sources of a variety of dyes: woad blue, dyer's weld for yellow, Lincoln green (overdyeing woad with dyer's weld), henna and madder's root for brown/orange/red (the latter specifically used for England's Redcoats), etc. Purple, like green, was often made by overdyeing an already blue cloth (often indigo blue) with red (often madder). And mordants--chemical compounds that allow dyes to remain colorfast even though the dye on its own would not be--have been used for thousands of years, with the name itself coming from Latin (mordere, "to bite.")

So...yeah. The High Middle Ages were almost surely a lot more colorful than most people give them credit for.

I swear some of y’all have never had a “soft murder boy” in your party and it shows.

The question is, is the murder soft, or is the boy soft? Or is it both?

 

[Fifth Element]

The restoration of the Sistine Chapel shocked some people. After scraping away the centuries of soot and grime, people couldnt believe how colorful and highly saturated Michaelangelo made his frescoes.

Some complained that "Art should be brown like a violin."



Actually, a similar thing happened in Nordic Archeology. After the chemical analysis of the viking period textiles came in, everyone was shocked by how colorful the clothes were, solid bold colors from every hue of the spectrum! Judging by the jewely colors, the shift toward vibrant colors happened just before the viking period.

All them ancient marble statues and columns were once brightly painted. But it turns out paint doesn't last nearly as long as marble or granite.