Lately the HMS Apollyon is drawing me back in, I've started doing some doodles and here are a few.This first is of the vessel from a birds eye view - not sure it captures scale well, but really there's nothing in the setting to measure it against so it'll have to do.
The second image I think does a better job of implying size, with a 50' yacht in the inset. The location of the yacht is a similar marina entrance to the one used in my last online game, which I really should post a play report for.The final two images are of different eras of Steward armor. The first a steward in the molded garrison plate common when Sterntown still controlled a few heavy industrial factories and could roll and stamp heavy steel as well as mass produce rifles. It's based on the experimental 'light body armor' prepared for the US army in 1918 - alloy steel over a rubber backing (WW1 armor is fascinating, from the heavy German armor for machine gunners, to the British layered silk stuff. The US armor that the HMS Apollyon armor is based on was designed by the rather interesting eccentric and renaissance man Bashford Dean who was also a noted collector and expert on early modern and medieval armor. The second steward wears the standard armor of the Stewards (with rather garish parade helmet crest) from the period after "the retreat" which all of my games have taken place in. Hand forged banded armor modeled after the roman lorica segmentata. In game terms both are identical suits of AC 17 heavy armor. I have decided that "Adsmus Custodes Pacis" or "We Assume Guardianship/Custody of the Peace" is an appropriately ironic motto for the stewards (They also have a motto about helping people and such maybe the Latin version of "Your Leisure is my Pleasure" spoken by Spud in "Train Spotting", but I haven't really decided yet.)
I'm glad to see this come back--it's one of the things that really brought me to this blog in the first place.
ReplyDeleteAlways happy to see more Apollyon content! It's great to see what your artistic vision is for this setting.
ReplyDeleteMoar plz!
ReplyDeleteLove it! I'm a sucker for tumblehome.
ReplyDeleteWell who isn't - I mean the Apollyon is straight up gilded age retro futurism decayed into faux Renaissance with that quip from H. Bean Piper about neo-barbarians "The last thing they seem to forget is how to make firearms (and arcano-steam mecha, but don't judge)" taken as gospel.
Deleteis it adrift or is it grounded? if the latter why is it not listing?
ReplyDeleteand further HMS as in His or Her Majesty's Ship?
and the biggest question who designed that tiny anchor which wouldn't hold something that size?
Either hundreds more anchors that size or a much much bigger one something the size of the Empire state Building? ( probably made of unbreakable wotsit just like the chain...)
Adrift, it's always been adrift. Though let's face it miles long cruise ships are more a metaphor for decadence and human hubris then a real megastructure. So yes a lot of orichalcum structural elements are involved. Survival and decay aboard are Gygaxian naturalism at worst and darn creepy applications of the mythic dungeon/dungeon as living thing. Simulationism it ain't.
DeleteIt's Her Magesty's Ship - or at least it was when launched. The primary human religion aboard is "The Temple of the Eternal and Recurrent Queen".
It's also certainly not adrift in the seas of its origin. Really nothing has ever been sighted by the fishers or anyone else beside an occasional smaller (much smaller) derelict for some hundreds of years.
"...an occasional smaller (much smaller) derelict..."
Deletewere they with hulls and decks made of the same material as the hull of HMS Apollyon?
And what size were they?
Well I'm thinking more rowboat sized - 30' sailing yacht that sort of thing, and not likely from the same world. There's a fishing fleet in Sterntown though.
DeleteBeautiful pictures, Gus. Thanks for sharing these.
ReplyDeleteThat second pic is great, not just because it communicates the massive scale of the ship, but also because it shows the upper deck is a full on urban streetscape. The fact that the ship extends out of the edge of the image also says "this thing is so big you can't see it all at once."
ReplyDeleteAre there things that can fly in the campaign?
@Lum - Well Flying Monkey is a character class/race - but Monkeys can't fly very far, more like a chicken then an eagle. There's plenty of nasty flying things that live in those towers though. Giant pigeons (about the size of a bull) being the most common.
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