#kraken up g major cover

[wyrmfedgrave]

Pics:

1 thru 4. Modules in the 2006 Hollow Earth Expedition RPG from Exit Game Studio.

The Earth (is) Not Hollow.

Intro: "Hollow Earth Expedition" is a fast paced RPG that embraces pulp action & the weird pulp adventure genre.

There's mystery, exploration & plenty of cliffhangers here. And the main setting is an ancient land full of time lost dangers!

The rule there is that, though many enter this weird Inner World, few ever get out again.

This results in a realm that collects folk from all the ages. And, the many dangers thereof...

Plot: 1936 America is struggling thru the Great Depression. And the world's getting ready for WW2.

Nazis are busy collecting ancient artifacts, lost tech & hidden magics.

And you're lost in a Hollow Earth scenario! Facing you are hungry dinos, pirates, Roman centurions, mystical monks, carnivorous plants & more...

But, you can also go adventuring in the surface world, which has a different feel, tech, politics & other concerns.

Back in the Hollow Earth, time moves differently, resulting in a wide variety of entities to encounter.

Since the electromagnetic field doesn't work there. So, you can't trust your any compass!

Worse, with the molten core not moving, you can't rely on navigating by the sun.

It's always noon here...

The Inner World's geography is just weird. Land slopes upward, there's fern forests, lava lakes & other bizarre features.

There's no maps here & each entrance to the Hollow Earth leads to new, exciting lands. As if the interior of the world were bigger than its surface...

In the Inner World, everything's more extreme! There's higher cliffs, larger animals - even hardier people!

Criticism: "Expedition" is a well crafted & fast paced game. With a straight forward & simple playing system.

From character creation to combat, everything is built for speed & ease of use.

The high quality & atmospheric art is mostly in B&W. But, character pages are all in glorious color.

The only thing that I don't like, is that "Expedition" doesn't deal with magic systems, psychic powers nor weird science devices...

Pics:

1 & 2. A look at the RPG's interior B&W artworks.

3. Amazing cover for Timothy G. Beckley's "Our Hollow Earth."

4. Page for additional game material.

5. A clear cross section schematic for a Hollow Earth.

Game Mechanics: This RPG uses 2 die rolls, where even rolls count as a success.

Character creation involves spending points on Motivations, Attributes, Skills, Synergy, Resources, Flaws & Experience.

Actions come in Standard, Extended, Opposed & Reflexive forms. Difficulty & Range of Success have Minor, Major & Amazing ratings.

You're even rewarded for good story- telling, good roleplaying ideas & any- thing that makes playing the game more smoothly.

Every round & Special Action is made up of an Attack & a Move element.

Simple Combat maneuvers add spice to the game.

You'll need Allies to face giant apes, man eating plants, lizard folk, krakens, mammoths, etc...

Game Masters focus on the game's pacing, rewards, Cliffhangers & all the other game running methods.

You're also given detailed travel info and summaries on the state of major countries in this conflicted time.

Finally, after a sample adventure, there's an Appendix, Glossary & Index. This includes a list of source material & a detailed wrap up...

[clannfearrunt]

Ok so here’s two like.. Lore Villains in my sploon japanese period fantasy AU. They don’t interact with like, plot. Whoops. They just exist in the background and are well known Big Powerful Yokai. They’re on the top 10 dangerous yokai list. They’ll fuck you up.

Mata and Koma are a pair of giant cephalopod-like yokai usually referred to as Kraken. Legends say that they once terrorized the seas in their true colossal ceph forms, sinking ships, attacking settlements, trying to kill each other, or even causing great disasters just kind of existing as their gigantic selves. One day, people got fed up with their shit and sent a large group of the best exorcists, yokai hunters and the like to combine their powers to bind them to the land. Ever since then, Koma seems to have settled in some mountain in Northern [squid japan], and Mata has been known to prowl the Southern regions of the island. Even though they are no longer Huge As Fuck, the two continue to be a menace.

More Lore Underneath the cut:

Koma (the pink one, with the turtlle) mostly stays put within his mountain home, tending to his many pet turtles. However, he keeps a sharp eye out for any hapless travelers passing through his mountain - whether mortal or weaker yokai - so that he can trick them into engaging in a battle of wits against him, with the price being their life. It doesn’t actually matter if his victims beat him, he will still do his best to kill them and make a meal of them for both himself and his turtles. When disguising as a mortal, he prefers to mimic an elderly Octoling monk, though an attentive victim may realize that he has the wrong clothes and appears to have a pair of “arms” that end in suspiciously tentacle-like clubs. Just don’t talk to him. Leave. Tear up his crossword puzzle and fuckin get out of there. He’ll chase you, but you’d have a chance.

Mata (the blue one), on the other hand, prefers to travel near constantly along the southern regions of the island. He is known to occasionally attack and plunder villages, often accompanied by lesser yokai he has bullied into loose servitude. His real hobby, though, is in disguising himself as an attractive young Inkling traveler and finding a young Inkling woman to court. Inklings usually aren’t attentive enough to notice his slightly weird hair, which is why he prefers playing with them. Although he merely sees these as short fun flings, he often unintentionally gives the impression that he’s looking for a Serious Relationship, and usually ends up skedaddling when his girlfriend ends up with eggs. He really hates children, but especially his own - saddled with more power than a mortal should have to handle, many Half-Kraken Inklings eventually lose control and are killed when they go on a panic-fueled rampage. Mata enjoys pretending this is funny. Serves those girls right for trying to “cheat” on him with children, right? Right...

The two of them Fucking Hate Each Other. No one knows how it started. Of course, the fact that Mata keeps periodically breaking into Koma’s home to eat his turtles probably does contribute to it. 

These two have several Abilities(tm) they have in common: 

1.) While all mortal cephalopods can secrete mildly venomous saliva, the Krakens have a highly corrosive, long lasting venom that can melt through flesh and will probably absolutely kill you without magical intervention. They don’t use this very often, as accidentally getting it on their own skin is, while not lethal, Pretty Painful. Also, it’s boring, and makes an inedible mess. It sucks, dude.

2.) Their arms stretch. They’ve got fucking noodle arms. It’s theorized that this is simply a selective application of their apparent ability to change their size - after all, they must be able to shrink and enlarge significantly if they can become as small as a normal mortal or large enough to easily sink a fleet of ships. Koma does this a lot more than Mata ever does, because Koma does not care how dumb he looks with noodle arms happening. His turtles would never judge him.

3.) Perhaps the most troublesome of their abilities is their extremely fast regeneration. Mortals aren’t completely unfamiliar with high regeneration, as many mollusks and echinoderms are famously able to restore great amounts of lost tissue over time. However, the Krakens take this ability to the next level - most injuries, no matter how grave, will begin to heal in a matter of seconds. Magic, poison, and fire seems to slow this ability, but you’re probably better off shooting for poison and magic. Those two know about fire safety, they’re not just gonna sit there and let you burn them, and, like, they’re pretty moist. You can burn a specific location but they’re probably not gonna catch fire my dude. Any Half-Krakens you might encounter are probably not gonna be in the state of mind to remember stop, drop and roll though. Use fire there, go ahead. Still not that flammable though. 

I don’t know how to wrap this up whoops. I guess like. While Mata and Koma do not directly interact with the AU... Main Plot Zone, I guess, they’re a force that anyone who deals in magic and shit have to keep an eye out for. The two Krakens, but more frequently Mata’s poor children, are one of the Top 10 Supernatural Hazards For Magical Types to Watch Out For. The scariest yokai are the ones that pretend to be mortals, after all. 

Thanks for reading this AU Lore 

[kraken-draws]

Drawing the kraken-draws way!

this is a continuation of the ask from @colorfultrashcan​. i wasn’t sure what type of advice i wanted to focus on, so this list that goes over a few major things. a quick disclaimer, being both self-trained and a hobbyist this may not be the most qualified advice in the world. it’s certainly not as much a “how to be a great artist” guide as much as it is a “how i like to do art” guide.

General advice and setup

💡 to reiterate the info on my FAQ page, i use medibang and a wacom tablet to draw.

💡 i like to listen to music or streams while i draw to help me focus. songs really influence my art, as you may have guessed!

💡 if i’m doing anything more complex than a simple doodle i like to use layers. it is much easier to make small adjustments to an image when you have everything organized.

💡 also for digital artists - save your wips early and often! there’s nothing more demotivating than losing quality art to a crash or a computer update that took you by surprise!

💡 USE REFERENCES! this is a pitfall i fell into in my youth and am still paying for it now. the attitude that “using a reference is cheating” was extremely common among amateurs in the mid-2000s. it is not true!!! draw from real life, draw from 3d models, photos, and other drawings! trace over photos to learn shapes! if it helps you learn, you should do it!!!

💡 if you’re feeling uninspired and unmotivated, don’t be afraid to take a break and go out and appreciate art. you might find inspiration and influence anywhere!

Sketching and lineart

✏️ i’ll be honest, i don’t use a lot of different brushes these days. for the last few months i’ve pretty much only been using the one below, plus some of the ones you can download in medibang, like the edge pen and the airbrush. before i liked using the G Pen 2 when i did use a brush with pen pressure. i might return to that one with time, but i like how my lines look now.

✏️ i like to do a short warmup before i get right into drawing. sometimes it might be a small picture, but more often i’ll just do a few shapes and squiggles to make sure the tablet is calibrated correctly.

✏️ some people like to do a sketch layer and then do their lineart on a new layer. i feel that my lines suffer when i do this, so usually i just do lineart in one pass and clean it up as i go. if i do draw guidelines on a separate layer they’re usually pretty rough. i’m not sure how much i’d really recommend this to other people, but it’s how i personally do it.

✏️ while drawing i put a big emphasis on bold and clear shapes! you could probably break a good number of my pieces down into circles, squares, and triangles.

✏️ when doing outlines, i try to reduce the number of strokes to get a cleaner, smoother line. it helps to zoom out for this process. don’t be afraid to undo and go back and draw the line again and again until you get what you want. (i use ctrl+z a lot...)

✏️ if you’re a digital artist i recommend using the line stabilizer option if it’s available to you. i have some unsteady hands so it definitely helps me draw smoother lines. there is such a thing as too much of a good thing though! if you set your line stabilizer too high and you try to draw sharp angles, for instance, you may find your corners getting rounded out, which you might not find desirable for certain situations.

Coloring and shading

🎨 i keep a palette of colors i like and use often. i find myself using the palette more and more as i’ve been trying to commit myself to coloring my images more often - they can often be a good jumping off point when i feel stuck on picking colors for a piece.

🎨 i’m a big fan of limited palettes so you’ll often find me using as few as 2 or 3 colors for a piece. i strive to have a good contrast when i pick colors too, so areas are easy to tell apart. i have trouble putting this into words, but there are plenty of guides out there on color theory that could cover the topic well.

🎨 don’t be afraid to play with your hue, brightness, and saturation as you color and shade. for example: when i did the aika village piece, i almost shaded aika and her dolly in purple, as it looks good with most colors used in the piece - but by adjusting the hue of the shading layer, i found that a cooler color like blue gave the piece a less welcoming cast - more fitting for the atmosphere i wanted to project!

Character design

👦 vary face shapes and body types, and more importantly, don’t be afraid to draw characters that aren’t pretty! some of my favorite characters to draw, past and present, wouldn’t be considered attractive by western beauty standards. 👦 not to reiterate my points from the color section too much, but use contrasting color areas to help give a character an easily readable silhouette.

anywho, that’s about all i can think of right now. hope this guide was helpful! feel free to reply or ask if you have any questions on what i’ve written.

[gadgetgirl71]

Top Ten Tuesday 6 October 2020

Welcome to this weeks Top Ten Tuesday. Originally created by The Broke & The Bookish, which is now hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week it features a book or literary themed category. This weeks prompt is:

Book Covers with Autumn Colours/Vibes

Bitter Falls (Stillhouse Lake #4) by Rachel Caine

Synopsis:  She’s investigating a cold case no one else could—by going places no else would dare.

In spite of a harrowing past still haunting her, Gwen Proctor is trying to move forward. Until a new assignment gives her purpose: the cold-case disappearance of a young man in Tennessee. Three years missing, no clues. Just Ruth Landry, a tortured mother in limbo. Gwen understands what it’s like to worry about your children.

Gwen’s investigation unearths new suspects…and victims. As she follows each sinister lead, the implications of the mystery grow more disturbing. Because the closer Gwen gets, the closer she is to a threat that looms back home.

In a town that’s closed its ranks against Gwen; her partner, Sam; and her kids, there’s no bolder enemy than the Belldene family—paramilitary, criminal, powerful, and vengeful. As personal vendettas collide with Gwen’s investigation, she’s prepared to fight both battles. But is she prepared for the toll it could take on everyone she loves?

The Collection by G Edward Smith

Synopsis:  Flash Fiction and Short Stories that will confound, terrify, and leave you wondering what just happened. With twists and turns ready at every page to keep you guessing.

Reflect (Reclaim Trilogy #1) Jesse Booth & Joanna Reeder

Synopsis:  Their romance only lasted a short few months… but that was more than 100 years ago.

Ever since his fiancé, Gemma MacLugh, was killed at the hands of a dragon shifter, vampire Leif Villers has mourned his loss. Still, a part of him never gave up on her. He could hear her voice, feel her love even through the grave, relive her memories over and over until they were stripped from him.

Now Leif has discovered the final piece to bring her back from death’s clutches. He carried her brooch, never knowing it held the key to resurrecting his love.

Too bad it’s now in the hands of the formidable kraken shifter who nearly destroyed the Shifter Academy in the recent vampire/shifter war and then slithered away, never to be seen again.

Across time, powerful selkie Gemma MacLugh–a magic user who can shape-shift into a seal–should have a wonderful, comfortable existence at her home in New York in 1897. But jealous sisters target her with their cruelty, making life miserable. If not for her Grandmother and her best friend and fellow selkie, Frederick, things might have been truly unbearable.

But when a mermaid seer foretells her upcoming death and opportunity arises to leave her home and travel across the country to a boarding house in Washington, she takes it.

To get away from her cruel sisters.

To escape her destiny.

But is it luck or fate’s final joke when she meets a tall, dark and handsome man by the name of Leif Villers?

Their love will challenge time and death itself, but can Leif get Gemma back? Can Gemma truly escape her fate?

The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman

Synopsis:  Everyone has secrets, but some can change your life forever…

In the midst of the Second World War, Eva receives the devastating news that her husband is missing and presumed dead. Neither wife nor widow, she lives in a numb state of limbo until, in the heat of an English summer, she meets Bill, a black American GI. Despite their vastly different backgrounds, neither can deny the love that overcomes them in the frantic weeks that follow, when every day could be their last.

After Eva discovers she’s pregnant, Bill is shipped off to join the D-day fight, leaving her alone in a bigoted world. As her mixed-race daughter, Louisa, grows up, how far will Eva go to keep her safe and bury the past? And how far will Louisa go to uncover the truth?

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Synopsis:  The present novel “A Thousand Splendid Suns” is the author’s second novel that was published in 2007. It is primarily the story of two women, Mariam and Laila. Mariam happens to be an illegitimate child. She has to suffer from the stigma that surrounded her birth. Not only this, she has to endure abuse throughout her marriage. Laila, the other major character, is born a generation later. She has a privileged youth. Eventually, when their lives intersect, Laila’s fate also changes and she is compelled to accept a marriage proposal given by Mariam’s husband, Rasheed. It is a tale of displacement, attacks, beatings, torture, social injustice, and pitiable condition of women in the contemporary Afghan society.

River of Destiny by Barbara Erskine

Synopsis:  From the bestselling author of Time’s Legacy and Lady of Hay comes a thrilling new novel, River of Destiny, an epic story that spans Anglo Saxon Britain, Victorian Suffolk and the present day.

Perfect for fans of Kate Mosse’s Labyrinth.

An Anglo Saxon burial ground that must not be disturbed. A Victorian tragedy of forbidden love. And an ancient curse whose power grows ever stronger…

On the banks of the River Deben lies a set of barns dating back to the Anglo Saxons, and within their walls secrets have laid buried for centuries.

Zoe and Ken have just moved into one of the barns, ready to start a new life away from the hustle and bustle of the city. To the outside world they seem like an ordinary couple, but underneath they are growing ever more distant by the day. And the strange presence Zoe feels within their home, and the shapes she sees through the cloying mists on the river are getting harder to ignore.

Whilst farmers are ploughing the land surrounding them, human bones are found and when the police arrive it becomes clear that the remains are much older than first suspected… Are they linked to a Victorian tragedy the locals whisper about? And what should they make of the grassy mound which has remained untouched across many centuries, but has now been disturbed with seemingly devastating consequences?

The Conjuror’s Bird by Martin Davies

It seems a long time ago that Fitz and Gabby were together, with his work on extinct species about to make him world-famous. Now, it’s his career that is almost extinct. Suddenly, though, the beautiful Gabby reappears in his life. She wants his help in tracing the history of The Mysterious Bird of Ulieta, a creature once owned by the great 18th Century naturalist Joseph Banks. It soon becomes clear that Fitz is getting involved in something more complicated — and dangerous — than the search for a stuffed bird. To solve the puzzle, he must uncover the identity of the amazing woman Banks loved — a woman who has disappeared from history as effectively as the specimen he is hunting. A mixture of detection, romance and history.

The Lure of the Wolf (Shadowmen Series #1) by Jennifer St Giles

Mighty warriors sworn to protect humanity, the shape-shifters known as The Shadowmen move between two worlds. Now their dark leader has exiled himself from the spirit world, opening the door to the forces of chaos…and to the power of love.

Half wolf, half man, Aragon has abandoned his brethren to repay a debt of honor; he is sworn to kill a rogue Blood Hunter, though exacting revenge will doom him to a ghostly existence trapped between two worlds. But when a mortal woman unexpectedly calls him to her side, the heat of her soft flesh arouses a hunger in him that threatens to complicate his mission.

Dr. Annette Batista, a dedicated healer, is determined to find her missing sister. With the amulet found at the site of her sister’s disappearance, she unwittingly summons a shadowy warrior. She wonders if she can trust this powerful male named Aragon, who claims he can vanquish her sister’s captor — the very monster he’s vowed to destroy. Or is Annette blinded by her shocking passion for the most alluring, mysterious man she’s ever seen?

Divine by Blood by P C Cast

Synopsis:  Morrigan Christine Parker finds that turning 18 carries a heavy weight when you’re the only daughter of Rhiannon MacCallan, disgraced high priestess to the goddess Epona, in Cast’s down-home follow-up to 2006’s Divine by Choice. After Rhiannon betrayed Epona, the goddess bestowed her favor on Rhiannon’s look-alike, Shannon Parker. Rhiannon promised her allegiance to the evil god Pryderi, but recanted after Morrigan’s birth, giving the child over to Epona’s protection and the care of Shannon’s parents. Now Morrigan comes of age and learns more about her heritage from her adoptive grandparents and the wind-borne whispers of Pryderi and Epona. While visiting the Alabaster Caverns State Park and exploring her power over rocks and crystals, Morrigan is unexpectedly transported to the mystical realm of Partholon, where she must find Shannon and fulfill her destiny.

Forest Fire (The Legends of Regia #2) by Tenaya Jayne

Synopsis:  *Book 2 in The Legends of Regia series. Sequel to Forbidden Forest.* Banished to Earth. Hunted by the queen’s assassins. Forest must fight to find a way back to Regia. Lonely and brokenhearted, she waits for Syrus to break through her banishment. Syrus lives his days in anguish, trapped in a portal that goes nowhere. Separated by galaxies, Forest and Syrus’ spiritual connection strains to the breaking point.

As Regia’s civil war ravages the land and the balance of power tips, the world will learn it’s the Rune-dy pulling the strings. Forest must face the horrifying truth of her father’s identity and how her very existence is rooted in one of the Rune-dy’s darkest secrets.

Fighting to find her place in Regia’s new world order, Forest is desperate to keep her past hidden, while Leith threatens to taint her name forever. Forest must attain her freedom through retribution and wage war inside her very soul. Will she be able to accept the gift Syrus offers, or will one mistake separate them forever?

Until next Tuesday

#JustForFun, #Top Ten Tuesday, #TopTenTuesday, #TTT

[glowyjellyfish]

Disenchantment thoughts before the trailer hits (Thursday, I think? Friday?):

I’ve been all over the place on this, but regarding Elfo in the teaser I have currently settled on “resurrection amnesia”, although the fire being blue as opposed to the usual green that Cloyd and the Enchantress have been seen with did give me pause; while rewatching I compared it to the color of the crystal ball’s recording and wondered whether this might somehow be a recording, but that doesn’t seem super likely.

Speaking of Elfo, I know we aren’t supposed to find out until next season (ie next year), but I for one am still convinced he’s half-orc. Oh, I agree the smart money’s on half-ogre, but I cannot be persuaded away from orc. Especially now that we know you can guess it based on his design, which??? Yes, I understand that people looked for similarities in creature design on the actual show, and ogre was the only match, but green + snout nose + notched ear (even as a scar) screams orc to me, and ogres don’t really have a standard pop culture design. Plus, the ogres are basically flesh toned, how would pale flesh + light blue = green? I think the gnome/ogre war could have been a metaphor for a hypothetical past conflict between elves and orcs (ie a species similar to Elfo’s father versus a species similar to Elfo’s mother). And whatever his other half is is apparently not a common guess, although I am not sure how popular “ogre” was as a guess before that interview. I will keep on believing this and arguing in its favor until the moment I am proven wrong, but ugh I just like it so much better than any other option, the tropes would be too good to pass up.

Regarding Odval, my other major discussion point: I honestly think my previous wild speculation is onto something, however, as I observed during a rewatch, his actions during the season point to a fairly straightforward Varys-style man-behind-the-king. I still say his motivation in following Bean to Elfwood was mostly about helping Sorcerio succeed, and his interaction with Oona helping her send a message home says, to me, that Odval feels the Dankmirian alliance is more important than Zog’s personal feelings. Notice that he tries to support this position, but quickly gives up when Dagmar comes in and starts pushing aggression. I also noted this time around that the human, humanoid, or human-appearing people on Dagmar’s ship all have identical skintones to Odval, and all also wear headgear that happen to cover their foreheads where a third eye could be if they are the same people/race/species? as Odval. I could be drawing connections where none are intended, of course, but it does look suspiciously like support of my “Odval and his people are prisoners/slaves of Maru” theory. I do however think that if the backstory was exactly as I speculated, there would have/should have been a little more reaction between Odval and Dagmar, and I don’t think it appears that Odval ever suspected anything about her plans, or that Dagmar has the slightest reason to feel either threatened or supported by him, or indeed anything about him beyond “oh, it’s you”. I really hope there is more about him in part 2, so I have more solid stuff to base theories around and don’t have to speculate so wildly anymore.

The squiggly sun symbol that isn’t a sun: We know it’s not a sun, and we know it’s “not what you think” and nobody has guessed it yet (if I recall the interview correctly. So here are some things I think it might be, some of which I thought up myself, others not so much:

-kraken. I actually think this is unlikely; it’s just too popular a guess. Again I don’t know whether this guessing came before or after the interview, but it seems… I don’t know, too obvious and easy.

-crown of snakes, such as from Cremorrah. I think the squiggly sun was seen in Cremorrah, which would very lightly support this if true. It also seems like an awfully common guess, but maybe that’s just my perception. I have no strong feelings one way or the other about this one, and no theories based on it yet.

-a meteor. As seen from the ground as it approached. Just… look at the angle of the cliff where the Dreamland castle sits, and tell me that looks like a natural formation. Sure, they could be pumping water up from underground for the moat, but still that entire landscape would make more sense if a meteor struck at an angle just next to the castle, decimating a big chunk of land which the sea then filled in. Hell, if there are FF fans amongst the staff, perhaps it was magic, summoned by oh let’s say Maru, an earlier stage of this conflict Dagmar seems to feel they are in.

-similarly, a hurricane. A sufficiently powerful, perhaps magic hurricane could fill the same role I just described for a meteor.

-a rat king. To be honest, that was one of my first ideas for the symbol, back in the early days, but it seemed a bit much. I’m throwing it out there now; it could be a stylized rat king as a symbol of Maru and perhaps in some way representative of them as a metaphor or something.

-a supernova or black hole or something similar that could be seen in the sky for a brief period. A la the supernova that could be seen in 1066 irl and appears in the Bayeaux tapestry. While I like the historicity of this, I’m not really clear on what it would have to do with anything.

I don’t have any bright ideas about the spiral, beyond that it is probably not a tentacle (everyone else’s first thought) or a question mark (mine).

...really I am just craving new material to do a n y t h i n g with. As should be obvious from the way I lost my mind over the tiny teaser! Really I should just be patient and wait, but that’s no fun.