New map of Mor Aldenn… by Andrew Law!

Time to get the Headless Hydra Games blog going again… and what better place to start than with a new map of Mor Aldenn, the City of Mages! You might ask yourself, why an all new map?

Honestly, when I decided to work on a new and expanded setting guide, I knew that I had to make Mor Aldenn even bigger. Mor Aldenn was never very big and more the size of a small town than a small city. This new map matches my expectations of what I originally intended. I also wanted to change the location of some of the important locations, like the Tower Hill and Horse Downs.

This map has actually been created in a very unique way – you can’t really see it in the finished result, if you didn’t know it, but I actually created 20-25 versions, building the map from the timeline. Starting with the very first settlers of course and then jumping 10-15 years ahead in time, making a new map. Yes, this was time-consuming, but it also made the map a 100 times better than what it would have been. Things makes sense now.

I had almost given up on finding a new cartographer for this project, when suddenly Andrew Law appeared! I remembered him from the amazing Freeport map, but what really sold me on him was the maps on his website. His style would be perfect for Mor Aldenn! And it was! Andrew has really taken the assignment seriously and has even made his mark on the setting.

Well, enough talk, here is a preview of the final map!

 

As with the other maps of the Mor Aldenn setting, this map will also be available in a small map pack including a colour and greyscale version!

A Preview and a Challenge!

Its been a while since I’ve updated any of my blogs, or just posted a bit of news. Does this mean that nothing new has happened to Headless Hydra Games?

No.

Far from it.

Lots of things has happened, and better yet, lots of things are… happening! For one, we are hard at work on the new Mor Aldenn Campaign Setting Guide… which looks to become more than 100 pages long.

To celebrate the upcoming Pathfinder compatible setting from Headless Hydra Games, you will be seeing a few minor products hit the pdf market the coming months. Already, you can purchase a short city supplement called Moon’s Folly. Moon’s Folly presents new character traits, feats, equipment and even a new fey monster called the Stiltskin. It also presents all the information to run a mini-campaign in the strange city of fey and lycanthropes… Moon’s Folly!

Among the other products that we are releasing the coming months are; a 20-25 page monster supplement, a race supplement presenting information about the new Mor Aldenn race called Gaiants (see illustration) and a couple of location pdfs (of a tavern called the Wizard’s Staff and a fallen tower housing a powerful demonic foe!).

So that was the preview…

…and here’s the challenge!

To celebrate that everything is going well with the Headless Hydra and that the future looks bright indeed, I’ve decided to have a sale… a sale that you, dear customer can influence!

For every person who comment on this blog entry, I will add 1% to the sale. This means that if 50 customers drop by and tell us something… about HHG, life or anything, really, we will hold a 50% sale. The challenge will run for the rest of the week, but while I would love to hear from 100 potential customers, I cannot hold a sale greater than 75%! However, that would be a nice sale, wouldn’t it?

So, accept the challenge and drop a comment!

What’s coming in 2011?

So, a new year is here and it is time to take a look at what it might bring for Headless Hydra Games!

First off, the new year will bring a few adventures based on the Mor Aldenn setting but easily adapted to any other setting. The first adventure is called the Haunting of Soldragon Academy and is written by Ron Lundeen. The adventure wasn’t originally written for the Mor Aldenn setting, but Ron has done a nice job at adapting it to Mor Aldenn. This is one adventure that I can’t wait to run, especially because I am a teacher and this adventure pits the PCs against a… horde of children! Nah, this is not the main plot, merely a fund moment during the adventuring. No seriously, this adventure made me laugh as I read it. This adventure will have a beautiful cover by Jeremy McHugh, that is being worked on in this very second, or so I hope! I am shooting for an early february release, but we’ll see what happens.

The second adventure of 2011 is written by Stefen Styrsky and bears the working title, Death in the Swamp. It is also set in Mor Aldenn, and pits the PCs against a foe that the world thought was dead and long gone… the Headless Hydra! Yes, something is definitely wrong in the Spindlewood Marsh and the Night Hag is cooking up a new plot!

Then comes the thing that I’ve been wanting to finish for a year! A revised and expanded version of the Mor Aldenn setting guide… this time, completely Pathfinder compatible. I’ve hired a bunch of amazing freelancers to help me finish this setting guide; Christian Gunter, Sean Holland, Ron Lundeen, Marc Radle and Stefen Styrsky.  The setting guide will have new races, a new base class, prestige classes, spells, feats, magic items and lots of new monsters! I hope for an early 2011 release, but to tell you the truth, I can’t really say for sure. This may become a bigger project than I originally intended! Which is a good thing 🙂

Oh, and then there is the b/w print edition of Eldritch Secrets… yes, I am still working on that, but I promise that I will finish it sometime during 2011! No, seriously, I really want to finish this as soon as possible. I can’t wait to start working on Volume 2, which will hopefully be released by the end of 2011.

Aside from all that, I really hope to start on a pet project of mine… a monster book where the artists create all the monsters before the writers write anything! Yeah, this book will be something… unique. I got this idea when helping out on Forgotten Foes and we actually put a couple of monsters in there that the artists created first, like the pond drinker, battle imp and junk elemental (just to name a few).

And speaking of art… you should look for more Clip art from Headless Hydra Games, especially our upcoming Forgotten Foes packages! Yes that’s right… you will be able to use all the art from Forgotten Foes in your own commercial products!

Well, these are some of the things that we are working on… but if you have a good idea for a Pathfinder project… please dont hesitate to tell us about it!

We hope that your 2011 will be as eventful as ours!

[Artist Spotlight] Richard Chaplin!

I’ve neglected my artist spotlights… so here is another one, finally! This one is dedicated to one of my new artists… Richard Chaplin. He got aboard on Tricky Owlbear’s newest (and probably biggest) project, Forgotten Foes, that I acted as art director on.

There is a story to this actually.

While getting the illustrations ready for FF, one of my artists suddenly disappeared. He had a lot of assignments on his hands so there I stood… and desperately needed a new artist to step up to the task! He needed to be good, of course, but also fast and efficient. There’s a lot of artists looking for work out there, but for some reason, I went looking for my artist at the site of my old (and now vanished) artist. And what did I find? Richard Chaplin, of course!

Richard is a great artist. His style is a little different from the rest of the bunch I’ve worked with, but it has a charm of its own. He could probably draw anything, but what I’ve seen of his work, he tend towards chaos and darkness, two of my favorite themes! Richard is not only talented, he is also extremely efficient and got the work together in no time and even had time to take on a few more assignments! You could say that he saved Forgotten Foes on the art direction side of things.

The work he did for Forgotten Foes was greyscale, but I can’t wait to see what he can do with a few colours… there are a few examples of this on his website, as you can see below.

Well, lets have a look at some of the work he did for Forgotten Foes!

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Catoblepas

(From Tricky Owlbear’s Forgotten Foes!)

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Nightwalker

(From Tricky Owlbear’s Forgotten Foes!)

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Phrenic Scourge

…apparently these are supposed to be our Mindf…

(From Tricky Owlbear’s Forgotten Foes!)

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And if you want to see more of Richard’s work, just follow this link! You can also, if you like monsters… buy Forgotten Foes and see more of his baddies!

[Eldritch Secrets] Art sneak peak!

Hi guys, its been too long since I wrote something about Eldritch Secrets, formerly known as the Spell Compendium project! So here is a short update and a sneak peak at the artwork.

Eldritch Secrets is nearly ready for layout. Most of the spells have been tested over and over again by countless good people, so much, that if I look at them one more time, I will probably come to hate them (which would be a shame!). With the newly released Advanced Player’s Guide (by Paizo), I will, however, have to look at them one more time, to see if there are any spells that resemble each other too much.

Concerning the artwork, all of it has been commissioned and I have already received most of the sketches. And as you can see from the sneak peaks… it is going to be a beautiful book!

Oh, and I’ve hired one more artist for the project, Daniel K. Lorentsen. You

can check out his work here; www.daniellorentsen.com

He was missing for a while, but now he is back and I’m looking forward to seeing what he can contribute to Eldritch Secrets!

What you are seeing is the illustration for the Stomach of Holding spell, this one is finished and ready for the book. It was done by a chinese artist named JinFeng.

The other two are for the Draconic Whip spell and Force Bombard. These were done by Darren Calvert and are only sketches, they will be in colour once the book is released.

I guess that is it for now, hopefully I will be able to show you guys the finished logo for the book next time!

Eldritch Secrets!

Today is all about doing statistics on Eldritch Secrets! I want to find out if there is a balance between the classes, levels and spell types (offensive, defensive and utility spells).

If any class is under-represented, I may have to add a few spells for that particular class, but honestly, I expect the book to be rather balanced.

I also hope to find out exactly how many spells are exclusive to only one class. Each class should have at least a few spells that are exclusive to them, even the ranger and paladin class!

News time!

It’s been a while since I used this blog, but I guess now is the time to take it up again… mostly because I have something to blog about!

I finally finished the last of the playtest pdfs for Eldritch Secrets, and yes, it has taken me longer than I would have liked. But anyways, the pdf has gone out to the contributors and now I await their last judgement!

I hope to begin the final design by the 1st of August, which is probably a bit optimistic, but you can always hope. I will also start assigning artists by that time, and I have decided to make this the first full colour project of Headless Hydra Games.

First Mor Aldenn adventure… done!

For more information on the publishing of my very first Mor Aldenn adventure, go here; http://cityofmages.wordpress.com

[Art Directing] An experiment!

This idea actually came across when one of the artists created something entirely new for one of our creatures. Most of the creature was faithful to the description, but there was some rather creative ideas that I just couldn’t ignore. They were just too cool and got me thinking.

How about letting each of the artists design a monster of their own? They would have (almost) total freedom. The writers would then stat up the monsters, creating a bunch of entirely new monsters for Forgotten Foes.

Of course, when I say almost, it is not because I wanted any control over these creatures, but because a need for a change might… appear.

And it did.

One of the monsters, a really cool and original demon, had some rather strange… features that might not go over well with most customers or even the compatibility license from Paizo.com.

The artists are free to decline doing a monster of their own, but so far, all of my wonderful artists has accepted the challenge, and even a few has already delivered some seriously cool sketches that will (without a doubt) be turned into some seriously cool finished illustrations.

This is a reversed way of thinking, but why not use the creative energies from the artists? I’m almost certain that Mark and Stefen, the freelance writers on this project, will have a lot of fun statting these guys up. I know I would!

Just to give you a little preview of these new monsters. This is a demon with some serious animalistic features, especially in the face and the hairy body. I like demons and often use them in my games. I can’t wait to see what the writers do with this one!

[Art Directing] The Grimlock!

I finally got around to writing the first real art direction post, just had to wrap my head around which monster to choose for the very first post. As you can clearly see from the illustrations and title (obviously) I went with the Grimlock, one of the first pieces that were finished. I went with this very piece because it really sums up the artwork in this book, or so I believe.

And what do I mean by that?

Well, I mean that most of the pieces are quite dynamic, detailed, but still quite simple, and yes, most of the illustrations are monsters only, meaning no backgrounds. If I had had a bigger budget for the artwork, the first thing I would have added was some environmental backgrounds, but sadly, I’m working with a severely limited budget. There is also another way that this illustration sums up the overall feeling of the artwork; it is monsters that we know, and yet, not quite like we are used to seeing them.

The artwork for the Grimlock was created by Mario Zuccarello (www.zuccarelloartworks.com). Mario used the following description when illustrating the Grimlock; “The muscular humanoid stares at you with dark, eyeless sockets.”

First Impression

This sketch really captured the savage feeling of the grimlock. It may not be looking directly at you (like the description says), but it is certainly charging you or someone in your party, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to spare your life! This evil humanoid is a fierce opponent; it is both strong and healthy and then it wields a simple, yet lethal battleaxe. You could certainly take this creature, but not without getting a few scratches or perhaps loosing an eye. Imagine an entire tribe charging you head-on like this, and your chances may not be so great. Scared? Well, you ought to be!

The only comment I had for the artist was; “The battleaxe (in D&D terms) is just a one-handed weapon.”

Final Impression

I could have asked the artist to change the pose of the creature, so that it looks directly at the reader, but does it really matter? I didn’t think so, and aside from the size of the battleaxe, I found (and still find) this a very strong piece. It really captures the feeling that I want the reader to get when first meeting the Grimlock.

So what do you think? Does it look anything like you ever imagined a Grimlock? Does it need to be even more savage? More subterranean? More fierce and evil-looking?