AWOL

I'm away for a week. There's an outside chance I'll find time to do some stuff while we're gone - I'll post when I'm back

Rune Escape

The first of the "translation" pages is done. These pages will ultimately litter the book, giving Cale a chance at translating any runes he finds in game that he doesnt know already. Here are some pics:

That's the hard bit done...

Maybe not...

It came out ok, although the enlarged characters at the top look a bit odd. With the amount I need to do by September though, I'm not really in the position to re-do it. When the book's done, I'll probably burn some of the edges off.

The insect design in the middle is inspired by the works of Zarano. You should check out his stuff on ebay if you're remotely into Cthulhu

Yet more runes

Two more down, although I have to apologise for the quality of the pictures - I'll post better ones later.

Shais' Rune - Darkness

The Heralds' Rune: Shroud

The rune of darkness came out way better than I expected, given that I'd pretty much nailed it first time. I'm less keen on the Herald's rune, but it does the job I guess.

The backstory for these two runes isn't written yet, but I'm not expecting much too trouble with it. Both the Herald and Shai are significant plot people in the Spearhead campaign so I plan to lean on that.

I've also started work on the first (of many) "Rosetta Stone" devices for translating runes. Pictures later.

First impressions

You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Well, so they say. Anyway, I've been giving a lot of thought to the first page of the Calenomicon. It's got to be the right words, the right design, the right layout in order to set the right tone for readers other than Cale. In other words, pretty much perfect.

Because the first section of the book is a journal and contains a wall of text, I dont want the front page to be too wordy. Book one contained a verse from the Dwale of Avaggadhu:

And that's pretty cool (the words, not my implementation), even if I do say so myself


 


I also had the Cthulhu Aquiddigay (or whatever its called, most Lovecraft contains too many consonents) elsewhere in the book, which I thought with a bit of adaptation might make a good front page:

"Rise, o namless runes!
That in thine own season,
Through thy spells and enchantry
May know of thy coming
And rush to thy pleasure
For the love of our master
Deep slumberer in green"

The only part I don't think quite fits is the last line. I'll have to give it some thought.

Best and worst

I've completed two more runes.

The Rune Of Mind

The Rune of Break

I love the picture of the Hanging Man which "Mind" is based on and the imagery sort of fits with how Cale uses the Rune in the game. It also contains lots of tentacle looking shapes which you can never have too many of.

Break was harder and this is my third attempt. Bottom right I mucked up one of the sky lines and it looks... horrible. I've managed to supress my perfection gene which is telling me to rip it out and start over...for now.

The original art is by ~xochicalco which you can find on deviantArt. I don't know what the copyright position is, but I'm going to buy the digital images from his website - it seems the right thing to do and they're only 2 bucks each.

Bleeding Disaster

The calligraphy pens I ordered finally turned up. Having done some research, I settled on the disposable type over little bottles of ink and all that other faffing. As a backup, I ordered a medium nib fountain pen.

Now, given that I deliberately bought different paper that was supposed to take fountain pen ink, you can imagine my disappointment to find that both pens - disposable and fountain - bleed on the paper:

You can see it clearest on the version of "arise" I started at the bottom of the image.




This is quite a set back. I was hoping to do some pages at least with fancy handwriting as a replacement of my unruly scrawl and now I'm left with using rollerballs again.

Ah well. Back to the ole' drawing board.

Dem Runes.. Dem Runes



So I've decided to divide the Caleonomicon into four sections, which will hopefully facilitate Cale finding stuff when he needs to. Section one will be the journal, two will be spell verbals, three will be runes and four rituals.

In the Spearhead game system, Wyrd magic is cast through runes - shapes - that are found through playing events. There are lots and keeping track can be a challenge, hence having a section on them in the book. In Book 1, the rune section also appeared, but the pictures were basically the rune shape in a circle and then some words. For book 2, I wanted to do something different

While the background to the various gods in the system is well known, there's little on the runes, which gives me a little licence to come up with stuff. Cale has the view that some of the runes are beneath him, while some have taken on an almost godlike status, which he calls "The Incana"



For these "Incana" I wanted to have pictures that represent their importance to Cale or rather to explain it. They needed to be psuedo-religious in some context but also not game breaking. I found some images of hand drawn tarot cards on the net, which I really liked the look of, so I've started trying to recreate them.

I've had some successes and some.. well, not. But that's the perfectionist in me. It's a hard attribute to have when you have zero artistic ability. Anyway, here are the first three:



I'm pretty pleased about how they came out. Once I've sorted out how to write, each page will have a mini-story about the rune wrapped around it. I have Wyrd and Harm sorted already, just practicing the words and waiting on pens.  



The rune of Wyrd



The Rune of Command









The rune of Harm.