Tower of the Moon

I've really been getting into drawing maps lately! This is Tower of the Moon, a sort of Werewolf's version of Ravenloft. It will soon be an adventure written by the esteemed David Pulver.

ERB Update

It's been a while since I checked the official Edgar Rice Burroughs channel on Vimeo. I visited it this morning and see they've uploaded a few more clips. Each video is a nice vignette of different properties ERB created, mostly of Tarzan, there is a good one on Barsoom too.

I particularly enjoyed the one of Pellucidar. It's surprisingly long and covers a lot of material. The others are much shorter.

Check them out here:

ERB Channel

Tower of the Moon - Isometric Map

I'm doing the art and layout for an adventure called Tower of the Moon written by David Pulver. Here is the WIP map of the tower. Still a lot more details to add and then color it. This has been played extensively in home brewed games, so should be well play tested and be a lot of fun.

Artist Spotlight: Roger Raupp

In the 80's hey day of TSR Roger Raupp was the most ubiquitous artist in the pages of Dragon magazine.

Raupp joined the Dragon staff doing art and cartography, and eventually became the Art Director for Dragon, Strategy & Tactics, and Polyhedron, doing layout, keylining, graphic design, cartography, and some of the art for the magazines.

The earliest Raupp illustration I could find, published in Dragon magazine #40 in August 1980.

I always liked this depiction of a Rust Monster

One of the enjoyable qualities of his work was how down to earth it was in dealing with the fantastic elements of Dungeons and Dragons. His proportions were not overly exaggerated to make a figure super heroic. His women were not drawn impossibly beautiful clad in chainmail bikinis.

The first illustration I recall seeing of his was in Dragon issue 83, the first Dragon I ever purchased. It was for The Dancing Hut, a terrific D&D style treatment of the Russian legend of Baba Yaga.

He painted 72 Magic the Gathering cards in the period it was exceedingly lucrative for an artist to be doing Magic cards. Perhaps this set him up nicely to pursue an independent art career, or to retire on a beach somewhere.

Rudy Didier Rauben
On a forum post in 2007 he posted this:

You'll note that the artist formerly known as Roger Raupp is now going by the name "Rudy Didier Rauben".... or Bonobozo

It seems he wanted to make a radical change in his art career and distance himself from the work he was known for. Other than a book called Immanence of Myth I haven't been able to find much of Rudy Rauben's work.

Update:

A user who goes by the name Rowan posted on EN World:

"He [Rudy Rauben] was one of the original artists for the Everway roleplaying game, so I recently had to track him down to update his contact information for the new edition I'm about to publish in order to pay him royalties. I was corresponding with him in 2012, but after that he dropped off the grid and his email service disconnected. I visited him in the hospital in Bellingham, Washington on November 24, 2019, where he was dying of liver failure. When he stopped responding to my emails on his new email service, I contacted his sister in Arizona. She confirmed that he died on December 17, 2019 in Bellingham, Washington. She also told me that no obituary was published, he was cremated, and his ashes were scattered in the Cascade Mountains."


 Sources
https://boardgamegeek.com/rpgdesigner/13063/roger-raupp
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?7050-roger-raupp
https://mtg.wtf/artist/roger_raupp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Raupp

10 Predictions from 2119

Some random thoughts on what will be 100 years from now.

All vehicles will be electric. You will be able to order any body style from a catalogue of every car body shape ever made. Classic cars from the 1930's, '40's, 50's, and '60's will be all the rage. They'll be 3d printed.

Meat will no longer be a socially acceptable food (you barbarian!). You will get processed vegetable matter that tastes and feels identical to any meat.

The biggest threat of AI isn't that it becomes sentient and destroys humankind, the biggest danger will be what humans do with AI.

While we may be mining resources on the moon, it is unlikely we'll have a colony on Mars. Perhaps some humans will have visited it and hopefully made it back.

Still no alien contact.

No life outside of Earth discovered.

While the 20th and 21st century were eras of rural folk moving to urban areas, there will be a trend in the reverse.

We'll know more about the Moon, Mars, and some other planets than we do about the deepest depths of the ocean.

Massive portions of the population will be addicted to immersive VR worlds and will permanently retreat there. Entrepreneurs will exploit this and use them as a labor force.

Original IP will be a thing of the past as remixes of what will be Public Domain properties (like Marvel, Star Wars, TMNT, etc.) will be the norm.

Mystery Map - Swamp Village

An iso map of a tiny village built over a swamp. Originally I was thinking it was inhabited by those little frog men; Grippli.

Print and Play Version:

I've relaunched my Patreon to include gaming supplements. I have an entire series of printable material, maps, GM aids, and adventures that I will be releasing each month for patrons. Take a look and consider joining the adventure.
https://www.patreon.com/thomasdenmark