Discussion Warhammer Wild West as an alternative setting? Brainstorming

Yes, something like this. I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, but can someone colorize this?

Would it look better on a landscape background would that be distracting. In free to use photos, I found this. https://unsplash.com/photos/rguHxZmOF5U


and this one. https://unsplash.com/photos/ArSxHmLs9QY



(I saved the links because if a World Anvil page gets widely viewed they will be sticklers about crediting artists, even if it's free to use like these photos are).

I personally prefer the one with snow. Given that my first Westhammer fluff piece was about a Wendigo and I gave Lizardmen warm feathers you can tell that I don't have a problem with snowy westerns.

 

If anyone wants to photoshop it, be my guest. I'm sure if I looked hard enough I could find a similar picture without snow or cars.

I like the snow.

Anyway, I was using this site from World Anvil to look for art and photos to use.

 

This forum has far better artists than I but I got impatient and got my hands dirty.

I took about 20 minutes to color and crop this. I chose the bottom version with the sheriff star. I'm not the greatest artist in the world and Microsoft Paint is not the most sophisticated medium, but I'm reasonably pleased with this, and I'm going to make it the default icon of Westhammer.

My contest participation has recently got me a tiny number of followers on World Anvil. The more followers I get, the better the chances of one of my followers liking the idea of Westhammer.

Scarterra will always be my brain baby, but I will keep looking after my brain nephew Westhammer. Westhammer is intended to be a collaborative project, so if anyone wants to join in on this, I would be happy to include more writers, artists, and game designers.

If someone has a better idea, or a way to improve this, I would delighted to use that one instead, but for now I'm going to splash this icon on everything


I replaced the background with a rustic campfire in lieu of World Anvil's generic Steam Punk Background. I'm not sure if that is better since it's rather pastoral and peaceful but the harsh Western text blocks remains.

I'm beginning to experiment making maps in Inkcarnate. Eventually I might try something for Westhammer but I'm a slow map maker and Scarterra comes first here.

Here's a link to the homepage if you guys want to browse it.

 

I should note that because I have a premium subscription to World Anvil, I get 50 digital coins every day. I can use 500 said coins to make a public message that will (briefly) float to the top of World Anvil's social page. I noticed even a mediocre post like "I'm excited for the current contest!" is enough to get a follower or two.

Hypothetically, I can use my fake money to say "Check out our Westhammer collaboration we just added _______"

Assuming we have a _____ we want to share.

Now we got a little bit of art. I noticed people are more likely to read articles with pretty art. Go figure.

 

Version 2 has a dirty orange background.



The background blends a bit better with the text blocks than the plain white text blocks but I'm keeping the plain white as the generic article header. I think since the thumbnail article pictures are smaller the white adds nice contrast.

One problem I have with dirty orange background is makes the white speckles more noticeable.

 

indeed. Also, it also diminishes the visual impact of the red/brown colored elements

 

I stickied this because I believe in this project, I want to encourage as many people to collaborate on developing the Westhammer setting, either here on Lustria-Online or via World Anvil.

If anyone is interested, I still have room for five or six more co-authors on Westhammer, if you want to write your own articles.

Also, I paid top dollar for a premium World Anvil Account. I can have up to 100 worlds. I don't need 100 worlds (3-5 will do), if someone would like to get a free World Anvil account, I can make you a co-author of one of my spare worlds and you can do whatever you want with it and be able to enjoy most of my premium features for free.

I would also appreciate illustrations to spruce up the visuals of Westhammer's articles.

For the month of December, World Anvil is encouraging their authors to binge write, and I am taking this challenge with gusto. I'm focusing mostly on my personal pet project, the world of Scarterra, but I am hoping to write at least a few thousand words developing Westhammer.

If anyone has any requests on what they would like me to write for Westhammer, let me know.

 

I believe you did the right thing, especially given that it's a setting often present in our comp

 

It is insanely beautiful.

I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I usually try to describe rangos as feathered dinosaurs.



Though I'm considering undoing the move to make them feathered just so I could include your picture.

Or maybe I could have them grow feathers in the winter and shed them in the summer...

 

I will be eternally grateful for any and all art you submit on any and all categories.

World Anvil requires all art be accredited.

Let me know what name you want your art credited to and if you have an artist's website you would like me to include a link to.

EDIT: Also, because I am trying to write as many articles as possible this month, I can try writing an article based on your art rather than asking you to base art on my articles.

Even an improved logo will probably serve as a muse for me.

 

I will admit, I like the original better too, but they are both excellent.

It may seem petty, but is important to me to differentiate Westhammer from WHF and I keep hoping the mainstream will eventually adopt more realistic feathered dinosaur in media and I want to be the change that I wish to see.

Also, that is a magnificent Culchan. I defintely plan to write an article about Culchan.

Just for an example, I put your art on the Rango faction article that @Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl wrote a while back.

Here it is.

At the bottom it says

"Cover image: by Paul1746" and your name is a link to your Deviant Art page

I figured and I am flattered.

Even though the lack of feathers mildly bother me, it is a great piece of artwork so I will attach it to the Yuqal'Cho-ax and Kai’ax, after, artist interpretation and author interpretation and artist interpretation are not always in sync and this is not a bad thing. Readers can imagine Rangos to look like however they wish.

 

Here is the expanded article I made for Rangos.


Go to Westhammer Homepage
RANGOS

The feathered lizardmen call themselves the First Children of the Old Ones or simply the First. The Estalians call them Saurios. A few still call them Lizardmen after the old tales of their forefathers. Most call them "Rangos".

The first Lizardman that chose to mingle freely with the other races took that as a pseudonym and that nickname ended up getting applied to the whole race.

They refer to other races as mammals or more derogatively, milk drinkers.
CIVILIZATION AND CULTURE
AVERAGE TECHNOLOGICAL LEVEL
Some have assimilated milk drinker technology such as firearms and some have not. Some try to work with the warmbloods and some refuse to do so.
MAJOR LANGUAGE GROUPS AND DIALECTS
Rangos of all types speak Saurian as their native language. A few have taken to learning the languages of others, especially Reikspiel since it is the dominant tongue in the West.
HISTORY
The Lizardmen of old were composed of the many subspecies. The near immortal toad-like Slann were their rulers, acting as both kings and religious icons, wizards of great power.Serving the Slann were crocodile like humanoid Saurus warriors and even larger hulking Kroxigor. The nimble Skinks were the most numerous and made up the bulk of the population.

Now that the Slann are long dead, the Skinks are in charge of the remnants of their once great society. Where once the Lizardmen aspired to direct the whole cosmos, now most Rangos simply struggle to survive and increasingly hostile and perhaps even alien world.At some point between the World that Was and the current year of Westhammer, the Lizardmen grew feathers. The Rangos themselves do not know how or why, but all artistic depictions of Lizardmen in ancient seem to show them bereft of feathers.

It also seems their ancestors struggled in cold climates and modern Rangos do not.



So I can easily make one giant article that talks about Skinks, Saurus, and Kroxigors separately or I could make sub articles that you click to via a sidebar.

I can put a blurb and their memories of the ancient Lizardmen as part of this article or as part of a separate article.

I don't know what people would prefer to see.