V20 Companion Art Notes

Howdy, my fellow fiends, from Texas in the midst of my vacation. Earlier this week, I turned in art notes for the V20 Companion, and I thought you guys might get a kick out of seeing what those look like. This is how words become picture in the Vampire production pipeline.

Follow this link to see how we mark up art notes in line with the book text. Called out sections are pieces in particular that the developer thinks would make a good illustration. Vampire has historically averaged about 750 words per page, taking into account half-page illustration, so I make a highlight about every two pages or so in the text doc that Rich provides to artists.

As well, we also create a an art note overview, for use by the art director and the illustrators.This includes suggestions for the full-page illustrations as well as general ideas, themes, and areas of particular importance, chapter by chapter, that deserve a little extra attention. Here’s that doc:

Art Notes: V20 Companion

General Art Notes

The V20 Companion is a survey piece in the same idiom as the V20 core rulebook. It’s a precis, a look at certain quintessential aspects of being a vampire in the World of Darkness. The illustration should have the same universal conceptualization as that of V20 itself — that the scenes illustrated could be happening anywhere in the World of Darkness where vampires prey. These are ideas that can be dropped into any troupe’s campaign with a minimum of difficulty, so they should be striking and accessible rather than extremely specific and narrow. Even the unique concepts can exist in multiple cities (titles) or be dropped into different domains (the locations chapter).

General Art Notes by Chapter

Chapter One: Titles

This chapter presents information on the various titles and responsibilities that vampires claim and bestow upon one another. Of all the chapters, it’s probably the best for showing individual Kindred fulfilling the primary duties of their titles. Don’t quite make these portraits, but the idea of “vampire archetype doing archetypal things” is very strong here. The chapter concludes with a two-page spread.

Chapter Two: Prestation

The complicated relationship of Kindred… well, relationships is the focus of this chapter. Imagine Dangerous Liaisons or Ridicule — everybody has a dirty secret or some kind of skeleton in the closet that can be used against her. Favors are the Kindred resource that’s traded as a currency, even between the sects, and keeping those dirty secrets is one of the prime functions of prestation. You keep my secret and I’ll keep yours. Do me a favor and I’ll do you one. The subject matter is pretty subtle here, so remember that this web of secrets underlies the context of the chapter. Betrayal or bearing an uncomfortable silence is a fine subject for individual illustrations, in the context of the highlights.

Chapter Three: Kindred and Technology

This chapter discusses the growing role of technology in the unlives of the Damned. The illustrations here should show Kindred using various devices, machines, weapons, and other implements discussed by the called out text. In particular, the chapter establishes that in the War of Ages between young Kindred and Elders, technology gives young vampires an edge that they didn’t have in nights past. Feel free to show a wily neonate getting the jump on an anachronistic elder, owing especially to some tool or device he’s especially skilled at using.

Chapter Four: A World of Darkness

This chapter is a survey of the World of Darkness, a listing of various locations of interest to vampires. As such, each entry is a unique location. I’ve called out an interesting and hopefully easily illustrated section of the locations, each of which should be visibly quite distinct from the last.

Full-Page Chapter Headers

Chapter One: Titles

This chapter offers new information on the Tal’Mahe’Ra sect, which we haven’t touched much since Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand, back in the late 1990s. Please show us the Del’Roh, the grand mistress of the Tal’Mahe’Ra, presiding over a secret ceremony of the shadow assassins and relic-hunters of the sect. The setting is the sect’s Underworld fortress, a ghost-realm castle supposed by many to be the First City where vampires had enslaved mankind in pre-history. The Tal’Mahe’Ra is a secret cult of mystics and bizarre philosophies, vampires who don’t often leave the realm of the dead, so feel free to be a bit strange in their architecture and costuming.

Chapter Two: Prestation

For the introductory illustration, please show us a Kindred grande dame, before whom are a trio of different vampire debtors, prostrating themselves. Show us the variance of Kindred archetypes, illustrating that regardless of the Kindred’s background, the web of promises connects all vampires. For example, we might have a skinhead, a creepy Old World witch, and an Edwardian fop all of whom are in the grande dame’s debt.

Chapter Three: Kindred and Technology

This chapter intimates that the best users of technology are the Anarchs. Let’s see an Anarch in a cinematic treatment of the topic: walking toward the camera, using a remote control to detonate a bomb place high in a corporate tower (where, presumably, some self-important Ventrue just met his end).

Chapter Four: A World of Darkness

The cover art for this book is one of the subjects in this chapter, the  Cathedral of Flesh. For the full-pager here, let’s see the Vampire Club. This was a fan favorite, practically a demand from the location chapter feedback. Here, we’d see “Sebastian Melmoth,” who is actually the Toreador Oscar Wilde welcoming the onlooker into the decadence, opulence, and baroque luxury of the club. It’s appointed beautifully behind him, and a few clusters or pairs of Kindred indulge their baser desires, contrasting the grandeur of the club with the horror of requiring blood as sustenance. A debauched vampire drinking a starlet dry in his tuxedo and leaving her crumpled, bloodless form on the crushed-velvet fainting couch while Wilde tempts us to join them.