Age of Decadence - New Art

Following the recent screens for Age of Decadence, some art has been posted to the official forums at RPG Codex. First, several new armours can be found in this thread, and second, a world map (sans markers or annotations) here.
More information.

As was pointed out in theat thread, the perspectives that the mountains and the canyons are viewed at seem to be a little different, but overall, I really like the look of the map. I'm still waiting for the Rpg vault video though, which they seem to be holding on to as long as they can.

Also, nice to see some news-section cover art. The Wachtower didn't really do it justice (I guess "Iron Tower", sort of)

It took me a while to get around to stitching the gifs from their site together…still looks a bit squashed, unfortunately.

Here is a better picture:
http://img512.imageshack.us/my.php?image=map05ane3.jpg

What do you think, Dhruin? Should we fix the mountains for the "satellite" consistency or leave as is?

Nice map. It looks perfectly serviceable (well, better than that, really) and you could tweak it constantly for a more realistic look, but for game purposes I can't see those little tweaks being worthwhile.
In terms of realistic geographical layouts, it's not really on the mark, but for an RPG everything looks to be functional and in the places it needs to be, which is the more important element I think.

So Dhruin is the mystery artist? [Edit: Or were you just referring to the cover art for AoD displayed on RPGWatch?] Very nice work - congrats! As for the consistency issue, rather than fixing the mountains, I would suggest giving the currently photorealistic bits (particularly the craters) a more stylized, hand-painted look, which could be achieved simply by running a filter such as the Gimpressionist over them.

I just realize that MF seems to have done something like this on the Codex thread, which, IMHO, looks great. Will the actual in-game map be done in a similar style, or will it have even more of a hand-drawn feel to it?

Originally Posted by Atrachasis
Will the actual in-game map be done in a similar style, or will it have even more of a hand-drawn feel to it?

I'm quite certain that is the in game map…

Anyway, as others have mentioned, I would prefer if the craters in the center were just made slightly blurrier, to fit in with the rest of the map, unless there's an in-setting reason for them being so sharply mapped out.

Another alternative I would like, if you happen to decide on a complete redesign, is Cardtrick's idea of making a pre-apocalypse map with post-apocalyptic notes and new geographical features scrawled on top of it.

Originally Posted by KazikluBey

Another alternative I would like, if you happen to decide on a complete redesign, is Cardtrick's idea of making a pre-apocalypse map with post-apocalyptic notes and new geographical features scrawled on top of it.

That's a good idea. Or just go with a pre-apocalypse map and it's up to the player to discover what has changed and what has not.

Hah! I wish I were the artist. I'm sorry, I have no visual artistic ability and no connection to AoD's development beyond having a cordial relationship with VD.

Originally Posted by VDweller
What do you think, Dhruin? Should we fix the mountains for the "satellite" consistency or leave as is?

I generally like it. The mountains possibly rise a bit starkly from the flat plain and I can see some different styling but it generally looks like a hand-drawn map and I like it.