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This Dragon Art Is From The 2024 Player's Handbook
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9298529" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>I'd take the softer stance that, for those who want dragons to be <em>very special</em>, having them destroy cities is one of the good ways to do that.</p><p></p><p>For my Jewel of the Desert game, set in an Arabian Nights setting, I <em>did</em> want dragons to be special--but covert. The two dragons that are known to be persistently involved (an as-yet-unknown black dragon, and Tenryu Shen, a gold dragon secretly hunting said black dragon) are playing a game of cat and mouse, using proxies and such. I've taken some cues from the way Tolkien described Gandalf (or Galadriel) fighting against Sauron if they'd chosen to take the One Ring. That is, Sauron is a very powerful being even without the Ring, and has sunk a lot of his power into the mortal world, which amplifies his influence but diminishes his self (and makes that influence perishable, whereas an un-divided self is not perishable.) In order to take on Sauron, they'd have to build up infrastructure and armies and such--essentially, they'd be playing Rise of Nations or Civilization against Sauron, except with <em>real actual people</em>, and they both know that that path leads only to corruption and evil.</p><p></p><p>These two dragons are the only ones that exist to any meaningful degree anywhere the player characters have been. They've <em>heard</em> about dragons elsewhere. But not much more than that.</p><p></p><p>More or less, by presenting it as a game of chess where real actual people and places they care about are <em>merely pieces on the board</em> (albeit ones Shen wants to protect--that's precisely why he's playing, rather than just raising hell), it actually emphasizes how dangerous these beings are.</p><p></p><p>They both <em>know</em> they could fight--and either one could potentially win, with greater preparation than the other--but doing so would be way too costly for both of them. So they ploy, and scheme, and use proxies, and the cat-and-mouse game continues while the lives of hundreds of thousands of people act as mere <em>set dressing</em>.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I, personally, think the issue is one of rather severely varying style. The figures closest to the viewer are crisp, perhaps even <em>excessively</em> "realistic," with fairly fine detail put into them. The middle-distance figures are all very impressionistic, and the far-distance figures are like a realistic image was put through some Gaussian blur. In particular, the dragon has details fuzzed--except at the edges of the image, where "dragon" vs "not dragon" is quite sharp.</p><p></p><p>I think this is where the "uncanny" feeling comes from for folks--the image doesn't really stick to a single way of doing things, but blends together three or even four different ways of presenting depth and detail.</p><p></p><p>I genuinely have no idea if this was the work of a single person or many people cooperating, but it kinda comes across as collaborative art where the collaborators didn't start talking until each person's piece was nearly finished. So the dragon and the crowd are semi-impressionist, blobs of color vaguely shaped like people, the middle-distance figures are low-detail as though out of focus (as one might expect), and the foreground characters are rendered in almost excessive detail--but <em>every</em> figure (except the crowd) has sharp, well-defined edges, rather than blurring with their surroundings.</p><p></p><p>It's just a really odd composition choice. It doesn't harm my enjoyment of the dragon at the center, personally, but I can totally see how it would have some uncanny feels for others.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9298529, member: 6790260"] I'd take the softer stance that, for those who want dragons to be [I]very special[/I], having them destroy cities is one of the good ways to do that. For my Jewel of the Desert game, set in an Arabian Nights setting, I [I]did[/I] want dragons to be special--but covert. The two dragons that are known to be persistently involved (an as-yet-unknown black dragon, and Tenryu Shen, a gold dragon secretly hunting said black dragon) are playing a game of cat and mouse, using proxies and such. I've taken some cues from the way Tolkien described Gandalf (or Galadriel) fighting against Sauron if they'd chosen to take the One Ring. That is, Sauron is a very powerful being even without the Ring, and has sunk a lot of his power into the mortal world, which amplifies his influence but diminishes his self (and makes that influence perishable, whereas an un-divided self is not perishable.) In order to take on Sauron, they'd have to build up infrastructure and armies and such--essentially, they'd be playing Rise of Nations or Civilization against Sauron, except with [I]real actual people[/I], and they both know that that path leads only to corruption and evil. These two dragons are the only ones that exist to any meaningful degree anywhere the player characters have been. They've [I]heard[/I] about dragons elsewhere. But not much more than that. More or less, by presenting it as a game of chess where real actual people and places they care about are [I]merely pieces on the board[/I] (albeit ones Shen wants to protect--that's precisely why he's playing, rather than just raising hell), it actually emphasizes how dangerous these beings are. They both [I]know[/I] they could fight--and either one could potentially win, with greater preparation than the other--but doing so would be way too costly for both of them. So they ploy, and scheme, and use proxies, and the cat-and-mouse game continues while the lives of hundreds of thousands of people act as mere [I]set dressing[/I]. I, personally, think the issue is one of rather severely varying style. The figures closest to the viewer are crisp, perhaps even [I]excessively[/I] "realistic," with fairly fine detail put into them. The middle-distance figures are all very impressionistic, and the far-distance figures are like a realistic image was put through some Gaussian blur. In particular, the dragon has details fuzzed--except at the edges of the image, where "dragon" vs "not dragon" is quite sharp. I think this is where the "uncanny" feeling comes from for folks--the image doesn't really stick to a single way of doing things, but blends together three or even four different ways of presenting depth and detail. I genuinely have no idea if this was the work of a single person or many people cooperating, but it kinda comes across as collaborative art where the collaborators didn't start talking until each person's piece was nearly finished. So the dragon and the crowd are semi-impressionist, blobs of color vaguely shaped like people, the middle-distance figures are low-detail as though out of focus (as one might expect), and the foreground characters are rendered in almost excessive detail--but [I]every[/I] figure (except the crowd) has sharp, well-defined edges, rather than blurring with their surroundings. It's just a really odd composition choice. It doesn't harm my enjoyment of the dragon at the center, personally, but I can totally see how it would have some uncanny feels for others. [/QUOTE]
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