A New Look for Classic Encounters

Thursday, September 29, 2016

This week, on my preview for the hardcover edition of Curse of the Crimson Throne, I wanted to talk a little bit about the new art. When preparing this book, Sarah Robinson and I realized something pretty quickly—we were going to have to order a LOT of new art. First of all, for modern Adventure Paths, we've moved away from vertical half-page illustrations, so all of those we used for scenes the first time around were going to have to be re-ordered and recreated. Second of all, in those early days, we were still experimenting with what the "Pathfinder Look" was going to be for our art, and not all of the art styles we tried out in those early days are ones that we've stuck with, so that made for MORE art we had to re-order and recreate. And finally, we didn't want to reprint much art that we'd since used in hardcover books—a fair amount of the artwork from Curse of the Crimson Throne actually ended up in the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook, such as the fight against the giant devilfish (page 185 of the Core Rulebook), the Red Mantis Cinnabar (page 203), or Eva's first design for the Gray Maiden (not only on page 198, but on the back cover of the book).

In short, we found it really easy to find excuses to add artwork to the new book.

Seelah and Harsk do some crowd control and Harsk learns how to dance.
Illustrations by Ben Wootten and Caio Maciel Monteiro

Turns out that this town is not big enough for these two! They ought to look to Seelah's diplomacy as she settles this local dispute.
Illustrations by Caio Maciel Monterio and Ben Wootten

Ezren and Seelah make new friends while Harsk prepares to make his point.
Illustrations by Roberto Pitturru and Richard Suwono

The amount of new artwork in the hardcover edition is enormous, with most of the significant NPCs now getting a full body illustration instead of a simple portrait, and with additional half-page illustrations for key encounters and scenes in the story. And it's those new half-page illustrations I'm going to show off today, without context (so as to minimize spoilers) and in some cases illustrating brand new encounters in this version of the Adventure Path. One thing I will say, though, is that each of these illustrations is taken from one of the six parts of the campaign. If you've played Curse of the Crimson Throne before, see if you can guess which illustrations come from what part! And if you've never played Curse of the Crimson Throne, consider these six images as teasers for the perils and excitement that await you!

James Jacobs
Creative Director