Vastlands Guidebook - 20 Pieces of Art

Dear Heroes,

Thanks to your patience and understanding, the Vastlands Guidebook has become something a lot more unique than what I had initially planned—a compilation of the rules from UVG 1E, 2E and SDM:ERK + a retrospective of some of my older art pieces. Instead, it is now graced with roughly 150 pieces of art, a lot of it tailored just to the book, most of it full color, and a layout to match the OGA and UVG.

Phew.

I still have to finish the Index and Inspiration appendices, then the endpapers. So, the book will come in a bit. Now is the time for ... all the art.

Character creation got a cartoon of Onion being re-loaded into a new body. Check out that Universal Mind Bus 42.0 neuro-cable!

The big corruption piece again features Onion! This time the merchant hero is unlocking an old psychophagus and gets hit by a blast of concentrated Preserved Mental Miasma ... or something like that. The piece at right is an older piece that I revamped. It's probably not as bad as it looks - that looks like a corruption exorcism in progress. I added a lot more detail to the background livingstone city and covered the pole in mystical writings + a timelost shopping list.

This piece is for the page on names. It shews the Giver of Names being presented with a babeling and consulting the Memorial Monument to choose a new name for the new human.

Approaches! From the page on getting things done--adjudicating different ways PCs do things. Here we see Pointyhelmet, Poncho, Demiwarlock, and Big Fish observing the approach to an ancient Mineralmaker, a gargantuan fungoid machine that draws minerals from deep within the world for the (absent) gods to use. Holy miners dive into its depths with ancient mantras on their lips to obtain permission to withdraw those rare gifts of Soil.

Spot art from rolling nuances — some odd dice and mechanics. Pen, watercolor, ink, and digital colors. We see Onion sneaking away with the liquid metal shapeshifting executioner’s blade his quick fingers ‘borrowed’ from the sad space knight.

Little people for the ability scores page! Look at all those lovely little character ideas. Also, reminding you when you play that drawing stick figures is FINE. Honestly, I should do a stick figures adventure module at some point where players are animated stick figures fleeing a drowning library or something.

An quadruped angel (a type of rook phylake) takes action against the PCs autogolem landhog. Ahem. Pew pew. Blaarp. Pen, micron, color pencils, and digital colors.

Other actions: "release ancient sleeper". Oops. Pen and colored pencil.

Terrible ideas (stealing the ancient idol that has remained unmoved for a myriad of years). From the section on adjudicating PC (and player) ideas. All digital.

"Release the Eater!" Noë, Safir, and Onion take extreme measures to enter the Golden City. From the morale page. Pen, watercolor, and digital color.

Relife options. How to bring back characters whose body has ceased to function, whose head has been saved, whose head hasn't been saved (but they had a canopic jewel that backed up their personality, yay!), or that has been dis-existed. Pen and pencil color, plus a bit of digital color.

Jade mask. Digital. From the wards page. "Item trait: Jade. Grants ward bonus against ghosts and spirits." Jade Mask: Tinkling jade beads also add +1 charisma. +2 ward. 1 st. €150.

Custom armor. Pen, pencil, and water color. Actually used masking tape to get the straight edge here. Fancy, eh? Nothing digital. The armorer presents the Helmet of Goblinhunter to the hero. The hero is not convinced and consults its embodied mechatronic daemon whether the helmet is suitable. Perhaps the hero should not drink distilled spirits while shopping for armor. Oh, well.

Gadgets, gadgets, gadgets! All digital. From the, well, uh, gadgets section of the equipment chapter. I think the Radiothermal Stove, "Stovey", is probably my favorite.

Spells! Urm. Powers! The Apocrypha of the OS album. Spells include "Can Trip", "Hlod Person" and "Tragic Missile" ... not sure who the green tentacly fellow is. All digital.

Inventing new powers. Sometimes things go "Bromf!" ... Pen and digital colors.

Fundamental Purification of the Soil Album:

Suspended Insight

Revelations of Pain

P: 1 R: self

T: thorn tree D: 1 hour

The wizard hangs upon a tree of thorns and gains +1 to an ability score for the rest of the day and a cryptic answer to a single question asked of the uncaring void. The answer has a 1-in-6 chance of being immediately helpful.

Overcharge: Gains +2 to an ability score and the answer has a 1-in-4 chance of being immediately helpful.

A totally unique spell that is not at all based on any commonly known mythology! All digital. Except the bunny. The bunny is metareal.

New art for the contents page! Pencil, ink, and digital colors. The hero and the Giving Worm.

There is a village there, still living as in the days of the Fleeting Gods, its buildings of livingstone undefiled by the pestilence of Muyuk. The house of goods still celebrates the cosmic goods bestowed by the Founder. The house of amusements still replays the seven-hundred procedurally ambivalent tales in 7-dimensional holoreality. The house of milk still sings and the fountain of protein and fats, drawing from organic wellsprings deep beneath the crusted flesh of the land, flows with nourishment. Alas, though the village is living, no humans remain. Only the Giving Worm (L14, humble servitor).

The Giving Worm knows what every human truly wants, and gives ointments and oils to satisfy every desire. Alas, this results in most humans becoming catatonic, satisfied in hallucinatory edens of their own dreaming. Even these humans the Giving Worm cares for, providing them nourishing, protective pods that offer them a full human life span of two-hundred years and four-score of hallucinatory eden.

Dig into the walls of the village and it is full of pods, full of dreaming god-humans, each the lord of their own Eden.

The Joy Good Dispensary. From the Consumables page. All digital. Stand by for economic propaganda report.

"Welcome to the Joy Good Dispensary! Get your goods of joy here. Satisfy your cargo. Consume. Goods for joy! Behold, material treasures for immaterial pleasures! Take the gift and be a civilized person again! Leave woe and weal behind. Forget the desolatiom. Embrace the munificent plenty. Be good again!"

And, finally, a re-do of the Bluelander piece. Pencil, pens, and digital colors. I re-did this one because the original Bluelander lady wasn't suitable for a full page piece ... so here's the revised spread:

As my daughter says when she does a thing that took an effort:

듣다!

Yeah, it should be "됐다" ... but she's still very young and her words are quite innovative.

I'll post the revised final final v3.43 proofing version of the PDF once I finish the index + inspirations. Maybe I'll do that later today (or maybe I'll have an afternoon sleep).

Take care everyone!

And happy June!

—Luka