Campaign Chronicle

[Fuchs]

I finally had my illustrated D&D campaign chronicle printed as a hardcover! 288 pages, with over 300 rendered illustrations in it, covering the campaign from about 1998 to about 2006. Took me about a year to make all the renders.

Warning, big pictures!

Next to the PHB:


Front Cover:


Typical page from the inside:


Here's the Cover picture source file:


Here's the backcover picture source file:

[Surgo]

Holy crap, nice rendering job!

[RandomCasualty2]

Yeah, damn. That's impressive

[ckafrica]

That tall dude could have used a bit more pants and the guy in the chain pants a bit less bulge, but all around that's pretty sweet

[Fuchs]

Thanks!

Though I'd like to see you tell a player "your character needs less bulge"

Here are a few more render pictures from the campaign chronicles:

(thumbnail links, but many)

An assassination attempt on a PC





An assassination by a PC





A Robbery getting interrupted





A barbarian attacks a Thayan Knight





Climbing





Entering a Dungeon





Fighting a Fire Elemental





Two PCs get a corpse thrown at them by an escaping Vampire





First trip into the Minarett of Screams in the City of Brass (from Necromancer Games), encountering two Silaaats.





Second trip, encountering two Silaaats and their boss, a Devil.





Two down, one to go...





Recruiting guards (aka henchmen)





Resting





Sneaking





Visions of the Past





Ambushing Yakfolk





A PC disguised as an assassin





Another assassination attempt on a PC





"No, really, he's a friend, quite charming..."





PCs disguised as drow attacking a Beholder





An ogre in the Underdark





Charge!





A duel in a temple





Following the rogue





Flying Carpets are handy in the City of Brass





This why you don't charge into a gas trap





Genie out of a bottle





Can you do that?





PCs are easier to carry if shrunk





Invisibility





Kidnapped





Meeting the leader of the Thieves Guild





A meeting in the Plane of Shadows





That's your cousin, just polymorphed?





Rescuing a victim of a kidnapping





Romance





Bodyguards can be useful when shopping too





Snakes in a dungeon






Undermountain





Yuan-Ti Jailer got too close to the bars





Blackguard on her Nightmare charges a PC





A pack of lycanthropes attacks



*****





You all meet in a tavern...





Open the door!





Why did you open the door! Watch out, Cone of Cold!





Death... cures even curses.





Sword of the Dales: Found!





Sword of the Dales: Lost!





Fighting Kidnappers Part 1: Half the party discovers their lair





Fighting Kidnappers Part 2: The other half of the party tries to rescue the first half.





Fighting Kidnappers Part 3: Only one enemy left between us and freedom... watch where you throw that fieeeeeeah! (Natural 1s when firing into melee are bad things...)





Fighting Pirates with Fire





Meeting more pirates





Oh, we found a genie!





I thought Genies created treasure, and did not steal it from the next mage with demons at his call!





Is it a good idea to pay them to leave us be, and tell them we've got a price on our head, and that we're staying in the town nearby?






It's a trap!







Run, bandits, run!





I didn't know wolves came in that size







Come on, before they catch us!





Just jump in, it'll work!





Watching the harbor





Riding a Dragon







The first 3E Campaign arc's finale: Attack on the invaders





And the invader counterattack with vampires





A vision





Planar Travel





On an island floating in the air





Fighting in a cellar





The man behind the fight revealed





Drunken dancing on the table





Finding a clue





Carrion Crawler attacks





Adventurers having a meal





Fighting a monster in the sewers





Spying in disguise





Obscuring mist covers a retreat





Threats from an NPC





A recption by a noble family





Lay on Hands





Breaking and Entering...





...and Assassination





Which room did she come out of?





Ambush!






On the Roof in the City of Brass





Interrupting a ritual...





... can have far-reaching consequences ("I am an efreeti? NOOO!")...





... opens up doppelgangers the ability to have your friends attack you ("It's me, HE is the fiend!")...





... and may not have an easy cure.



Some pictures detailing why the party quit the employment of a certain noble family:





A thief gets surprised





Meeting nobles for a mission





"No, I have no idea how the woman in the alley next to me died..."





No one mentioned drow when we were hired!





A bloody message - Head in a box





Vengeful spirit blames a PC





Jailed for something they didn't do - this time





Fleeing the country on a ship

[Lich-Loved]

Fuchs, this is fantastic! Can you tell me a bit more about your project: how it came about, its goals, who did the writing, the content of the book, that sort of thing. I have never heard of anyone taking a campaign journal this far.

[josephbt]

Okay, could you upload some sort of a .zip or .rar? Cant watch this as it is.

[Fuchs]

As a DM I've been typing up a relatively detailed recap of what happened in a game session as part of the preparation for the next session since ca. 2000, which evolved into a campaign chronicle when we started with 3E. When I played, I did the same. It was useful to get everyone on the same page, and keep details from getting lost and forgotten (somewhat). So, the writing had been going on for years, but was kept as a word file.

When I got DAZ Studio I started making character pictures for roleplaying games with it (Shadowrun and D&D). Then, fall 2007, I did the first illustration for a D&D game session, on a whim. Irregularily, more such pictures followed until the end of 2007.

Then, during the holiday break, I took the time to complete the D&D campaign chronicle by typing up a few periods I had taken notes of during play, but neglected to type them up so far. When the D&D chronicle was finally complete, I decided to put up a picture for each chapter cover, then decided to add two pictures per chapter. At the same time, I started doing a picture per page of the campaign chronicle, and soon afterwards started to go over the "backlog", with the goal to have each page illustrated. That took me until fall 2008, at which point the D&D campaign chronicle had grown to over 500 pages, split in two files so they could still be loaded with decent speed on my laptop. I turned them into pdfs to make it easier to pass them to my players (who get a mail with the weekly add ons as a word file, with the picture or pictures integrated, prior to the new session), and started looking into getting the things printed, making a cover and backcover picture etc. I finally heard of Lulu, and uploaded the first book to see how it'd turn out.

The chronicle consists of the collected recaps/summaries of campaign sessions, usually about one page of text per 4 hour session, and more or less detailed - I don't note down exact sentences spoken, unless something is truly memorable, and often use indirect or summary speech ("The mage and the swordsman quarreled some over which way to take, until the cleric ordered the group to take the left path." could sum up a 5 minute scene, or a 20 minute dispute.) Combat scenes novelized, though sprinkled with rolls results in parentheses, and special moves and spells in italics, like "Burning with rage the barbarian ran forward and beheaded the red wizard with a single stroke with his falchion (critical hit, 90 dmg)".

The earlier parts of the chronicles are less detailed, some of them I had to reconstruct from memory and notes taken 10 years ago, but since several years the notes are fairly detailed.

General content would be classed as mature/adult - there's no graphic description of violence or sex, but there are pictures showing nudes of both sexes when appropriate, like when the party gets attacked while taking a bath.

I am currently working on illustrating my Shadowrun chronicle. Ongoing sessions (D&D and Shadowrun) take precedence though, I don't want to fall behind there, so I hope to be done with that by the end of the year.

[Fuchs]

Okay, could you upload some sort of a .zip or .rar? Cant watch this as it is.

What site is good for uploads without having to register and stuff?

[Roy]

Use Rapidshare. Or something.

[Draco_Argentum]

Try http://www.uploading.com/ Rapidshit shares ip addresses of uploaders with entertainment industry stooges.

[josephbt]

rapid is okay for this, he's not violating anything

[Draco_Argentum]

Obviously, doesn't mean jerks should get usage stats from him though.

[Kevin Mack]

Hi sorry for the extreme thread Necro but just wondering if anyone knows if there is a way to get a copy of this? (Physical or digital)

[Draculmaulkee]

This is the most impressive necro I've seen here.