My Fantasy RPG World, Feedback and Ideas appreciated

As of the writing of this post, I have completed 25 prompts for Summer Camp 2024. I've had fun writing Scaraquan entries especially. Here is the Scaraquan equivalent to pigs...but can you make hagfish bacon?


hagfish

It is of course a real fish that exists in our seas, but I expanded on them for an aquatic fantasy setting.

 

Many Irons in the Fire

Summer Camp 2024

Summer Camp 2024 is over. I needed 32 article entries to win the Diamond Badge, I wrote 39, there were 42 options. You check them all out here.

It's already got me some new eyeballs on Scarterra plus a tiny handful of subscribers. Since August is World Anvil "reading challenge", I'll hopefully pick up a few more.

I'm going to peruse other peoples stuff and leave constructive criticism and hope some people return the favor.

Crazy Marketing Experiment

I've been a lurker on DeviantArt for over a year. I found two artists I like willing to do work for me. I found a bunch of artists I like who don't take commissions and I found many artists I find interesting to look at their work but I wouldn't want to hire.

And there is a veritable ocean of stuff on Deviant Art I am not interested in.

And I'm adding a drop in the ocean. A bit of AI Art with a short story story attached and a link to scarterra.com

Maybe it'll help with marketing Scarterra, maybe it won't. But it doesn't cost me much to try.

Planning RPG book

I have about 92% of my RPG rules pinned down. I'm working on the last 8% which is the slowest and most painful 8%. I got a new online friend who is kindly helping me review my RPG rules. My long-time buddy is helping me, but this falls on me mostly.

Once I get the RPG rules down, I can finalize my RPG book. Of course I need to add lots of art to my book, put in short story vignettes and work on the graphic design.

My hypothetical RPG book will not have any AI art in it, I will never charge someone money to see AI art, but I have thousands of articles on Scarterra.com for free, and I cannot afford commissions for all of them, so some of them will have AI art. I am working on refining my technique and making the right key words to get the AI art I want.

Art

As much as I can afford, I'm commissioning human artists to make stuff for me.

My buddy Zeta Gardner took a vacation recently and he works on my commissions as a side hustle to his main job, but he is back on the grindstone. The portraits of the Nine should be ready soonish. 7.75/9 are done so far.

Tengku and kalazotz are Scalenex-original races and they have professional illustrations.

Scarterran satyrs are a slight twist on traditional satyr lore, and they have professional illustrations.

Scarterran elves and dwarves are really not that different from "standard" elves and dwarves other than they have unusual skin and hair colors. At this point, it would be an inefficient use of my discretionary funds to pay professional artists for portraits Scarterran elves and dwarves when everyone has a pretty good idea of what they look like or I can make a reasonable facsimile from Hero Forge.

There is no consensus in the fantasy artist community for what a "standard gnome" looks like. D&D alters between little dwarves, little elves, long-nosed hobbits, and goofy tinkerers. Warcraft very much seems to like goofy tinkerers. Pathfinder seems to like to lean towards female gnomes, especially 3 foot tall sex kittens.

I have written thousands of words for how Scarterran gnome society works, but I haven't pegged down what Scarterran gnomes look like. Illustrating Scarterran gnomes is the next step after the Nine get their portraits.

Then Zeta Gardner is going to help me figure out what Scarterran gnomes look like and make at least five or six gnome portraits and two or three action shots that happen to include a gnome. At this point I don't know what the end result will look like, but Zeta is pretty good at coming up with ideas.

We'll see what comes out of this.

 

Usually when I make an AI image, I consider it a win if get an adequate image.

Once in a blue moon, I get a near perfect image. Behold, Turoch the primordial god that the Nine battled.



In unrelated news, I made an article for a relatively minor dwarf NPC and was compelled to invent a new Scarterran dwarf clan and I got a decent family crest for them. I consider this an above average AI result though it took me multiple tries and rewording to get this one. When I make Scarterran dwarf heraldry I usually include the key words "Old Norse style".



Here is an icon for the Meckelorn Tenders, a dwarf faction I recently flushed out. I consider an adequate AI Art, it's a little louder than I wanted but this is best I could get from multiple tries.

 

this one is AMAZING

 

Thanks for the words of encouragement and know that this is the tip of the iceberg.

I now have a professional portrait for all nine of the Nine. The only thing that is left is lay out the complete set and make final adjustments to make sure they fit together.

I'm revamping my Scarterra overview to be more succinct. The plan is to make a couple surface level primer articles with lots of art and very short summations of core lore of Scarterra with optional hyperlinks to follow for aspects of the lore that catch their fancy. And of course with lots and lots of pictures.

My WIP overview article is here but it doesn't have the new art yet, it has this image posted over and over again \/