At what point did you decide you wanted to take your RP setting and assortment of characters, and turn them into a fully fleshed out story? Was it something you had in mind all along, or was there a turning point? If so, how did you start the process of taking loose concepts and fleshing them out into the super detailed world of unsounded?
It’s complicated!
Long, long ago, I was working on a fantasy novel called Tanners. It took place in Alderode, starred a group of thieves, assassins, and social outcasts, concerned a war between rival gangs, and was not great. I was still in my early twenties and impressively stupid.
A couple years later, my friends and I were in need of a new setting for our RP after we fell out with the owner of the place we’d played in previously. I sat down and wrote out Sharteshane, which existed in the same universe (and borrowed a few details) from Tanners.
I’d already pulled Duane, Sette, and Murkoph from Tanners for the purposes of RP in the older game, and started developing Bastion to be my main in a new game in this new setting. It worked well. My friends and I had a lot of fun there over the years, and the setting and characters all just became increasingly more rich and detailed as the stories spun on.
All good things must come to an end though, and RP eventually did. Afterwards, I needed a new project, and webcomics were really taking off. I wanted to do one too! I went back and looked at Tanners (which I still loved even though it was dumb), looked at RP, and decided that the latter could save the former. I took cool things I’d discovered and developed in the game, like Duane and Sette’s chemistry and the Black Tongues, and decided to work them into something entirely new but familiar. It would lean heavily on things that were and are important to me, like highly dysfunctional families, the irreconcilable evils of human institutions, and sad boys beating each other up.
It all came together pretty quickly once I decided to do it. I had the pieces and I knew the themes. It all plugged together with minimal stress.
While most of Unsounded’s big concepts were devised specifically for the comic - pymary, the khert, senet beasts, the First World, Cresce - you can still see the seam between RP content and Tanners content if you know where to look. That seam is where a lot of the plot and conflict happen. Alderode and Ssaelism are almost purely Tanners. Sharteshane and Gefendur are purely RP. Duane and Murkoph are Tanners and Sette and Bastion are RP.
And I really like this. Because Duane slowly making his way towards home feels like me making my way home from RP to Tanners. Tanners was a place of naivete, ignorance, comfortable tropes. RP was a place of worldliness, experience-building, chaos. Duane and I are heading home, but we won’t recognise it, and it won’t recognise us.
Anyway, many of the (what probably seem like neurotic) details in Unsounded come from years of me DMing that RP game. If you know anything about DMing, you know you have to be able to pretty quickly conjure up answers to all kinds of player questions, and be able to write and world-build in real-time as you play. After ten years of writing and refereeing Sharteshane, though, I didn’t want to spend excessive time there in Unsounded. That’s why the story barely touches the place, and we’ve spent most of our time in Cresce and Alderode.
I name all of my DnD sessions, because whatever, that’s just what I do. Please enjoy (or don’t) the sessions that my players have played so far:
1) The Hook
Named because it was the hook of the story and also because the city they were in was called The Hook. Pretty simple. The Monk ripped out one guy’s throat.
2) A Serious Sea Side-Quest
They got attacked by a sea serpent. That’s it.
3) We’re All Rogues Today
They all broke into a house. The Rogue’s kinda the party-leader so there’s a lot of that.
4) Community (college)
They were supposed to go to college. They broke into more houses instead. Rogue’s idea again. The Monk suggested they just kidnap the target, but she was outvoted.
5) We’re Stopping a Coup…I Guess
It had nothing to do with why they were there but they ended up stopping it anyway. This is also the session where they split the party. Three ways. The Bard almost died.
6) Let’s NOT Insult the All-Powerful Sea Dragon
The Rogue insulted the all-powerful Sea Dragon. In his defense, the Monk did it first, although it was accidental. He did it on purpose. This is also the session when the Ranger was introduced to the party.
7) There Was Bound to be Pirates
This is a mainly sea-based campaign, so…yeah. Pirates. And they burned down a ship, so that happened. And everyone almost died.
8) The Mimic and the Lost Child
Exactly like it sounds like. The Monk nearly beat up a 7 year old stowaway. She also got swallowed by said mimic. It was fun.
And as for the next session…I have the name but can’t say because one of my players follows me and I can’t spoil it for her. If anyone is interested, I might post about it after it’s done. If anyone isn’t interested, I might post about it anyway.
Such a face of unbridled rage can only belong to The Johnny Jhonny. (I love it, thank ye)
"Send me a ✍ and a character and I’ll draw the character horribly on MS Paint." I have two words for you: Johnny. Jhonny.
Life’s greatest mystery: is this a drawing of Shou Suzuki or Johnny Jhonny?
Send me a ✍ and a character and I’ll draw the character horribly on MS Paint.
Help a gal and her cat out, oh 9 followers of mine
$5 COMMISSIONS! Not even kidding! I posted this on a different app but it was taken down. My baby has a tumor, and I need extra money for X-rays and surgery, provided that the cancer hasn’t spread to her little lungs.
gofundme.com/58mn6-surgery-for-kitkat
My go fund me campaign- but I am more than happy to work for the money. I’ll draw pretty much anything right now within reason. $5 minimum for the 5.5 x 7” sketches.
I NEVER ASK FOR REBLOGS BUT- I’m putting my pride aside and trying to do what’s best for my baby. Please reblog this if you’re a fan of my work- or a fan of cats. I love her so much and can’t stand the thought of losing her.
Someone pitched her out the side door of his truck one day and she tumbled onto the pavement and it broke my heart because she was so tiny and her eyes were gunked shut. I kept her a secret from my parents in my room upstairs for 6 years. It was just the two of us. So as you can imagine I have a very deep bond with kitkat and I would do anything for her.
If you want to help but can’t commission or donate then please reblog it will mean the world to me and the sweetest little catholic could ever meet.
yOU CAN CONTACT ME HERE oN TUMBLR OR AT MY KIK IN THE PICTURES ABOVE
SISYPHUS GETS A 9 TO 5
[spoilers for all of severance season 1. words by northernlion, brain worms by me]
This looks really nice, thank you! I especially love how floofy you've made his cloud... hair? Yeah let's just call it hair.
for @rainwvalker who said: “Umm if ya wanna how about some king C action”
he was so much fun! i had to mess around with brushes a little to get the effect i wanted and i love the brush now. im probably going to doodle with it a little more and see.
Valerio Minato's photo that won the Astronomy Picture of the Day Contest by NASA on December 25th, 2023.
In the picture: the moon, the Monviso Mount and the Basilica of Superga (on the Superga hill) outside Turin are all aligned. it took him 6 years to take this shot (and I take it as an example to never give up on your dreams).
Hello! This is a tumblr blog. I do stuff. Actually I don't really do stuff, I just reblog things. Yup. That's about it. Banner art is by @painter-marx, icon is by @rifuye
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