Mystic Arts

Look at this concept art!

Added 2025-07-21 15:00:07 +0000 UTC

The first step in developing the look of Blackguard was finding out what the people look like.

I knew I wanted to chase that idea of playing a fantasy RPG in that London we see in the Guy Ritche Sherlock Holmes movies, you know that one that's all smokey, moody, and somehow always bereft of daylight.

But it couldn't be too historical, it still had to be visibly a fantasy world. So, how do we do that? Well, I'm not an artist, so I asked my friend Brimrún to draw up some pieces. We sat down and looked at concept art we all liked, talked a lot about hats and smoking, and about individual roles in society we were looking for.

In the end, since Blackguard is so much about class divisions, I asked her to concept up three classes of society.

For the working class we wanted a dock worker, factory worker, and a paper boy. For the middle class we wanted a merchant, a bureaucrat, an artisan, and an actor. And finally, for the upper class we wanted an aristocrat, a banker, a wizard, and a politician.

Then I asked for a noblewoman for kicks.

And wow! This somehow hit the nail right on the head, it's got an orc, a dwarf, an elf and a MOUSE MAN! What the hell! I'm really in love with this gang.

I immediately started creating stories for these people and I'm sure we'll eventually get actual art of them for the zine in time, not just concept art.

Next up, I'm thinking we try to do some environment pieces? That'll be challenging, but we'll get there!