General Creativity

[nasKo]

Wasn't keepbro discussing a commemorative storymod? (Or some other long C word..)

I can remember discussing it with him but I don't think anybody at the time was going to do so..

EDIT: I was going to take a crack at it but I lack the confidence to go into the PZ coding and try to make a PZ story mod, not to mention all of my ideas would need mapping done (which I've tried and consecutively failed at.)

What RoboPleb's mod does is more along the lines of dropping notes in the world that tell a story. Not scripting stories.

Scripting stories is probably a thing for the future when NPCs and possibly the quest system are back

[Rathlord]

Drummerkidjack, PM me the link to your writing and I'll give it a full critique tonight. I won't remember otherwise X=

[ExcentriCreation]

I think it's RoboMat's mod.

Rath and other people are contributing neato stories, though, IIRC

 

I knew that RoboMat was doing the "coding" but was under the impression that Rath was doing the majority of the creative writing.... No offence intended but Drummer is on a different level, far more descriptive & professional. Though I am sure notes, letters & journal entries are a difficult medium for storytelling

 

Wasn't keepbro discussing a commemorative storymod? (Or some other long C word..)

 

Collaborative?

[Rathlord]

You can some of my more serious work jotted down earlier in the thread excentri. To a certain extent, my work with RoboMods stuff is intentionally simplistic and shallow since it's meant to be written by every day people, not poets =D

[ExcentriCreation]

You can some of my more serious work jotted down earlier in the thread excentri. To a certain extent, my work with RoboMods stuff is intentionally simplistic and shallow since it's meant to be written by every day people, not poets =D

 

Fair enough

Granted I hadn't looked at that before I posted, once a thread has reached a certain length people tend to just scan through it....

Still, I stand by my statement though.... Your work comes off a little bit cheesy, both in survivor stories & in your more serious work. An example would be in your piece entitled "Baroque", you glance over magic which is fair enough but at other times make reference to general archetypes (augmenting the sword for example).... I feel as though I would understand better if I was playing the same games or watching the same movies.... It seems like an "in" reference, is what I'm getting at. A more professional piece would either glance over it entirely or guide the reader through what they needed to know rather than relying on plugs which ALWAYS come across a little cheesy.... "A Sensible Man" on the other hand guides the reader the entire way through the story.

Still.... make me feel like a prick for criticizing, why don't you

 

This is a piece I'm working on for PZ entitled "Resident of Muldraugh"

Its an A2 sized poster, part of a 3 part series based on the intro of the game

I might add that I thoroughly detest showing people W.I.Ps but given the conversation, I dont think it would be fair not to put myself out there.... Feel Privileged

 

 

I am aware that the denim texture doesn't suit the rest of the pic & I don't add shadows or highlights until I have drawn the light source

[Rathlord]

I'm open to critique always =D Baroque is a short story I wrote when I was 17, and the other is just an exercise in visual writing. I should probably post something more recent and serious X=

I did have some reasoning Behind how I did Baroque, but if it didn't work I'm eager to hear. The intent was twofold- to keep the story short I skimped the details, and I also feel much like TIS about PZ- that if you explain the magic, it stops being magic. If it felt disconnected I'd love to hear where and how, as I do like to revisit older pieces frequently. Baroque was also meant 100% to be a commentary on the cheesy evil-isn't-evil subtext that flows through modern fantasy, so if the ending felt A bit camp that isn't entirely unsurprising. PM me sometime with a more in depth commentary if you're interested!

[Rathlord]

Any of you talented individuals be interested in drawing my current Dungeons and Dragons character?

[ExcentriCreation]

Any of you talented individuals be interested in drawing my current Dungeons and Dragons character?

 

Any reference material? Or just by description?.... What style? Portrait? Concept? Scene? or just, "look how awesome my guy is"?

Ill have a go, assuming you like my style & don't mind me tagging it & putting it in my portfolio

[Rathlord]

Haven't seen much of your work so it's hard to judge, though I would probably prefer something a bit more flat and stylized than the piece above- hard to judge, though, since as you say it's WIP.

 

I was just going to PM this to anyone interested, but in the interest of this being General Creativity and such, what the hell might as well post it. The relevant bit to drawing it is in the "appearance" section, the rest is her backstory. I wrote this about 2 months ago and I did the entire thing in about 30 minutes because my friend had just called and said "We're playing in an hour." So, please correct any errors you see as I'm sure they're there. I didn't even have a chance to give this a second read-over at the time.

 

 

 

Shaila, the Shadar-Kai Scout

 

 

The Shadar-Kai (source: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4wand/20130430 )

 

The Shadar-Kai were once one of the fey races. However, long ago they became threatened by the nonfey, humanoid races that started taking over Faerun. In an attempt to protect themselves, they made a pact with a dark power from the Plane of Shadow. The pact was intended to pitch the entire world into an endless twilight, in which shadow fey would always reign supreme. However, something went wrong; the Shadar-Kai ended up bound to the Plane of Shadow and cursed. The Plane of Shadow forever tugs at the soul of every Shadar-Kai, and will eventually swallow them and return them to its depths forever.

 

This shadow curse now haunts the Shadar-Kai. It is constant and unending. At any time, a Shadar-Kai’s soul (as a whole, or just in part) could be ripped from their body and sucked into the Shadow, leaving the Shadar-Kai weak and in emotional despair. In an attempt to ground themselves in reality and stave them off from the curse, they keep themselves in constant pain, by wearing a spiked iron armband called  gal-ralan. The spikes fix the Shadar-Kai’s souls to their bodies, at the cost of unending agony.

 

Shadar-Kai are tall, lithe fey, exuding grace and incredibly stealthy. They have grey skin and dark eyes, and shadows follow them around darkening whatever area they visit. They prefer light weapons suited to their incredible grace and agility.

 

Shaila - Appearance

 

Shaila herself is short and graceful, and very slim. She moves with a serene purpose and beauty, but that very beauty makes her all the more uncanny. A simple look into her eyes shows the utter agony she endures every day, and the shadows clinging around her and subsumed into her blade make her appear frightening at best.

 

Her hair is a deep, deep black. It hangs below her waist in a tight, controlled braid. Her face is sharp and angular, attractive but grim. Her eyes are startling orbs of solid black, which tend to scare people when they first meet her.

 

Due to her curse and her constant pain, she isn’t possessed of the incredible physical strength many fey races are. Instead, she focuses her efforts into being accurate and dextrous.

 

Shaila - Backstory

 

Shaila, like many of her people, was a cold, heartless killer in her youth. She perpetrated acts of evil with reckless abandon in an attempt to keep herself emotionally anchored to the world- a common practice among Shadar-Kai, and to pay tribute to her deity- the Raven Queen.

 

However, one day, after committing a terrible act of atrocity (which she refuses utterly to speak about), she was struck down by the gods with a(nother) curse. Her trusty rapier had become a haunted blade, a sign of the gods’ anger at her. When she uses her blade in combat, she is drawn to absolute evil, turning her mind to wicked thoughts and making her unable to control herself at times.

 

This very curse, though, caused her to reevaluate her beliefs. If the Raven Queen had struck her down for killing, perhaps she wasn’t meant to be evil after all? She completely changed herself afterwords, truly seeking good and loathing herself for her evil past. She has decided that the Raven Queen doesn’t seek instant death for everything; instead, she kills for the Raven Queen when people deserve death, and when it is their time.

 

Shaila may appear evil on the outside, and may even be forced by her haunted blade to commit evil acts in the midst of combat sometimes, but at heart she is truly a force of good. She left the fey to come to the Material Plane in search of enlightenment, and relishes the joys of nature, good company, and animals. She spends her days hunting down evil and destroying it, in the name of the Raven Queen.

 

The Story

 

Shaila: The Event

(Haunted Blade Theme: http://www.wizards.com/dndinsider/compendium/display.aspx?page=theme&id=1013 )

 

The tavern bustled with livelihood; it was a weekend, and a full compliment of musicians stood in the center of the room playing lute and lyre in upbeat tunes. A man sat on a stool juggling balls of many colors. Common folk danced around, forgetting their worries for a while and the massive fire in the hearth danced to the music as well, keeping the frigid outside air at bay. The room smelled of wood smoke and warm food, as all good taverns should.

The scene was a picture of liveliness and happiness. The folk of Dundertown had never been known for much more than this; a friendly farming village that worked hard and and enjoyed life as best it could. That hard work was why the tavern was so busy and so bustling- the people in it came there to enjoy the fruits of their labors, to be carefree and loud and happy.

That’s why when she appeared it was so very out of place, not that anyone noticed. With the mere sound of a whisper she appeared in the corner, right out of the shadows. She was not like them; she wasn’t gleeful and loud, she didn’t jostle. She was very silent. But she came there for the same reason as them- to pour out her emotions and enjoy them as best she could.

She was Shaila, a Shadar-Kai straight from the Plane of Shadow. The depths of the Shadows were calling to her, tugging on her soul and she needed to be somewhere where she could feel! Somewhere like a busy inn full of happy people. Her pale gray skin and solid black eyes would have been frightening had she been drawn to public attention. However, her long cape and the shadows that seemed to cling to her kept her sliding somehow out of people’s vision even though she was standing in plain sight.

In a second she went from an unnoticed observer to a part of the party. In the middle of a dance she whisked herself into the mix, laughing and swaying. She danced, and danced hard. She drank the mead, ate the food, and all the while she danced. People might have noticed her had she not been so fleeting- she danced the jigs at double the tempo, speeding lithely across the room and changing partners in an instant. She even took a turn at juggling for a moment.

It was in the midst of this dance that she felt the pain- like getting hit in the chest by a charging yak. She had let herself go too much; in her carelessness the Shadow had ripped a part of her soul from her. She fell quietly to the ground in the corner, once again out of the public notice. She could feel her soul stretching, about to rip- but she wouldn’t let it.

With a snarl she flung herself back into the Plane of Shadow after her fragmented soul. She landed on the ground in the perpetual darkness and gathered herself back together. Drawing her rapier, she thrust it into her thigh. The pain focused her mind into a sharp point. For a moment, her image was stretched, as if an artist had smeared his hand over a watercolor in frustration or anger.

She let pain and rage consume her. With a feral howl she fixed her soul back to her body and thrust herself back into the material plane.

This time when she landed in the tavern it was completely different. Rather than appear like a shadow in the night, she exploded into view, covered in dark energy, atop the table in the middle of the tavern. Her rapier ran with her own blood, a thick pulsating purple. Everyone saw her in an instant, except for the one man juggling- sitting atop his stool, with his back to her.

In a flash, she lunged into the room with her rapier. How had she been so foolish. To let herself feel, to relax, to have fun. Her anger burned in her heart and in her deadpan eyes. Whisking her blade to and fro, she danced once again to a beat only she could hear. Every step of her dance, an innocent fell to the floor bathed in their own blood. When the first one fell, the juggler noticed her and stopped, his mouth agape. By the time his last ball fell to the floor, every last person in the room was dead- not a one had had a chance to react.

Shaila stood in the center, laughing maniacally. She laughed not because she enjoyed this, but because she had to- to keep her soul intact. If she stopped for even a moment, she would have been consumed by her ennui and the Shadows.

“For the Raven Queen,” she said softly, carving the symbol of the Raven into the floorboards.

It was at the moment she finished the final line of the raven that it happened. Time completely froze- Shaila couldn’t move, couldn’t react, couldn’t do anything. Slowly, ever so slowly, a shadow crept up her rapier. It moved like sludge, like a slug and smelled of bile and fear. All Shaila felt at that time was pure terror, but there was nothing she could do. As it scaled her blade, it left dark runes burnt into the steel, glowing with inner light. Motes of darkness dripped from it, and inevitably it reached her crossguard... her hilt... her fingers.

When it touched her, she felt in an instant the terror, hatred, and fear that she had caused every one of her victims. It clung to her mind like a parasite, instilling itself in her for all time.

In an instant, time started again. She flung the rapier away from herself, trying to forget, to leave it behind. She couldn’t. As soon as it clattered to the floor, it was back in her scabbard.

She pulled it out of the scabbard. As soon as it was in her hands, she felt it again- the scars she had caused so many. She saw something behind her, and whipped around. Standing behind her, ever so visible, were the glimmering, ghostly forms of every creature she had ever killed. They said nothing, did nothing. But they stood, and they stared, and they accused. She didn’t feel sad, though... she felt something else. Hunger.

The spirits hungered for more. They wanted more blood, more pain, more terror- more people to share their fates! She threw the rapier away from her once more, and once more it appeared in her scabbard. The hunger faded slowly, as did the ghostly images.

Replacing the hunger came despair- what had she done? Why did she deserve this? She had served the Raven Queen her whole life, sending Her souls as was the custom of her people. She couldn’t live like this. She pulled out her dagger and pressed it to her chest. Took a deep breathe, and...

The Raven image she carved into the floor burst into life. A living raven from the goddess Herself slashed her hand sharply with its dagger, causing Shaila to drop her knife, and then flew away into the night. Shaila sat, staring at her hand for hours, and then slowly let herself fade back into the Plane of Shadow.

 

Shaila - The Change

 

The monks stood silently, watching. They huddling in a circle, crouching over a figure that  knelt on the ground. Around them, a temple in the shape of a giant raven with outstretched wings protruded into an otherwise empty skyline. This was one of the lonely temples of the Raven Queen. She had few followers to begin with, and this small temple secluded in the wilderness was one of the few left.

Its monks were not the typical Raven Queen followers- they didn’t use her name and image as an excuse to be careless about life and kill who they pleased. They followed the true Raven Queen, fickle, but never negligent.

In front of them, a lone Shadar-Kai knelt, a dark rapier clinched in her bloodless hands. She had been there for days now, eyes closed, rapier thrust deep into the earth. She hadn’t eaten, drank, or even stirred the entire time.

However, despite her outer serenity, Shaila was fighting the hardest battle she had ever fought. As she knelt on the ground she sought to overthrow the Shadow in her mind, to fight off its dark will and the taunts of the spirits gathered around her. It took everything in her being not to slay the monks around her, simply for their sin of existing. She had sworn to herself, though, that she would not release her grip upon the rapier until she had mastered herself.

And so she knelt. Every muscle in her body was tensed- half trying to stand, to fight, to kill, and half resisting with all of her willpower. Finally, one of the monks walked up to her and laid a hand on her shoulder; one of the others tried to motion him back, but it was too late.

Shaila felt the touch and it was all she needed. She swung into motion, chopping her sword up towards his head. The monks gasped simultaneously in shocked horror. She sliced the edge of his cowl, a lock of his hair, and nicked his ear... and stopped. A small drop of blood ran down her blade, and was hungrily subsumed by the dark energy shrouding it. He stood looking right at her, fear in his eyes, but like any Raven Queen follower, accepting his death. But she had stopped. She couldn’t stand to have him following her around for the rest of her life, another ghostly apparition bound to her horrid blade.

Snarling, she slammed the rapier into her hilt and fled into the temple. For a moment, she thought she had done it. She thought she had mastered her darkness, but she knew that was folly almost instantly. This was something she would never master; a fight she could never win. All she would ever be able to do would be to fight it with everything she had and hope she came out on top, each and every day.

 

************

 

The monks stood silently, watching. They huddling in a circle, crouching over a figure that  knelt on the ground. Around them, a temple in the shape of a giant raven with outstretched wings protruded into an otherwise empty skyline.

In front of them, a lone Shadar-Kai knelt quietly on the grass. She moved gently, patted the earth, and the monks began chuckling quietly. Shaila looked up at them from the ground.

“What’s so funny?” she bristled, peeved.

“Shaila, deerest, ye cannae transplant a flower like that!” One of the monks said, chuckling still.

“Why not? I did what you said, I planted it carefully and I didn’t tear any of its roots!” She retorted, peeved at dirtying her clothes and smelling of dirt and greenery for nothing.

“Theers more to it than just the roots, ye ken? Ye must make sure it’s somewhere it’ll get water, where it won’t erode, where the wind cannae tear it down!”

Shaila hung her head dejectedly. “Why didn’t you say that before I did all this work!” she demanded.

One of the other monks replied to her gently. “Because, Shaila, you can’t learn to respect life just by wanting to. You have to understand life to cherish it, and to honor it when it goes to be with the Raven Queen. You have to have empathy, girl! But you’re learning, and that’s what matters.”

Shaila looked at him dejectedly and nodded. “But this flower will die now?”

“Aye, it will go to be with the Raven Queen. That was its fate, and the fate of us all, but as with everything- its passing had a meaning. Make sure all things that pass have meaning, Shaila.”

[Pixel Bombs]

 

For some reason I work better at night.

 

[FreeJayFly]

I made some stupid little Valentine's Cards that feature mine and my fiance's characters. Thought I'd post them here since it's really what I've been working on recently as I've been taking a break from comic planning and writing. :'3

 

 

 

 

[VamyreLord]

I made some stupid little Valentine's Cards that feature mine and my fiance's characters. Thought I'd post them here since it's really what I've been working on recently as I've been taking a break from comic planning and writing. :'3

 

 

 

 

^ Wassup with an elf wearing a biker gloves?

[FreeJayFly]

 

I made some stupid little Valentine's Cards that feature mine and my fiance's characters. Thought I'd post them here since it's really what I've been working on recently as I've been taking a break from comic planning and writing. :'3

 

 

 

 

^ Wassup with an elf wearing a biker gloves?

 

Wassup with personal created worlds that don't abide by others' standards?

[Rathlord]

I like 'em FreeJay. Wish I could draw mine D=

[FreeJayFly]

I like 'em FreeJay. Wish I could draw mine D=

 

Thank you~ Also, aaaaaa... I'd be up for drawing others' stuff as requests, though at this current time, I'm just so busy with paid commissions and a webcomic that's launching this weekend, that it'd be hard for me to keep up with everything. Though if I ever feel like drawing for others and accepting requests, I'll be sure to let you know. ; 7 ; I do intend on lurking these forums for a while and offering input, after all (I really enjoy playing Project Zomboid, and the community thus far :'D)

[mendonca]

I like 'em FreeJay. Wish I could draw mine D=

Best I could do in twenty minutes with a pencil ...

 

(Needs a lot of work, obviously)

[Rathlord]

Oooooh nifty, promising start.

[Footmuffin]

I tried fixing the lighting and colors on my un-self doodle-y thing-a-boo. Why not take a peek at it? Oh, also I resized it and now it looks all fresh and different and shitty.

 

I wasted an hour doing all this.

[Kitt Frostpaws]

 

 

I made some stupid little Valentine's Cards that feature mine and my fiance's characters. Thought I'd post them here since it's really what I've been working on recently as I've been taking a break from comic planning and writing. :'3

 

 

 

 

^ Wassup with an elf wearing a biker gloves?

 

Wassup with personal created worlds that don't abide by others' standards?

 

I thought you were gonna reply with 'Shadowrun'

but okay then.

[Footmuffin]

I just did an unusually lovely water-soluble pencil painting earlier tonight which I have to turn in for a school assignment. It probably won't turn out very nice if I try to scan it and show you all but there I did something nice.

[Pixel Bombs]

Mountain study.

 

[Rathlord]

Badass, that's a slightly different style from your other stuff. I like it!

[RoboMat]

This one is a bit older (it's a scene from the stalker-movie):

[Pixel Bombs]

Perspective practice is great fun.

 

[FreeJayFly]

 

My fiance and I are working on a background. This is just a WIP for now for one of the groups that we're helping out with. It's going to be a botanical garden of sorts.