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THE ART OF

S. 7

Character Art

S. 23 Creatures

S. 77 Environment

© 2014 Daedalic Entertainment GmbH. The Dark Eye is published under license of Chromatrix GmbH. The Dark Eye is a registered trademark of Significant Fantasy Medienrechte GbR. Blackguards, The Blackguards logo and the Daedalic logo are trademarks of Daedalic Entertainment GmbH. All rights reserved. Layout: Tanja Rohlfs Text: Tilman Schanen

S. 115 Inventory

Aventuria is the world of the 'Dark Eye', Germany's most popular Pen & Paper RPG. It's a world, not only existing in hundreds of rule and sourcebooks, but also within the minds of thousands of gamers. To breathe 3D animated life into a world that everyone has a different mental image of is a particularly challenging task. There's a lot of concept art within the sourcebooks, but these pieces rather provide outlines of Aventuria, instead of fleshing out the world. So it was on our artists to fill this world with all the details. Details, our 3D artists could utilize to bring life to the ancient lizardfolk ruins, strange plants and dangerous creatures. The sourcebooks' art is created by many different artists, each with their own style. For Blackguards, we had to translate all these styles into one look. Our concept phase was all about finding a middle ground between staying true to the original, yet also taking a certain degree of artistic license without disconnecting the players from the Aventuria they love. Aventuria is settled in a 'realistic', rather low-fantasy setting. Megalomaniac structures, flaming skyships and towering 3-mile-high turtles are quite rare. But if we go realistic, we go realistic in style. After all, this is still a fantasy world and fantasy is fueled by the stylization of reality. A giant slug shouldn't just be a particularly big slug; a swamp ape shouldn't just be a red-eyed baboon. With the Wild South and the Emirate of Mengbilla, we deliberately chose locations that are still 'unexplored'. This gave us a certain wiggle room and the artistic license to develop a style we'd be eventually happy with.

Attention: This artbook contains game-spoilers!

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Character ART

Aurelia

Fidning an appearance for our inscrutable witch

taste). After she went through some changes, she

was one of the toughest challenges we encoun-

metamorphosed out of her goth-style outfit into

tered. She's the most complex character and at the

her final appearance which reflects her libertine,

same time it's particularly hard to design a woman

yet aloof nature pretty well. She's also carrying a

with equal focus on beauty and character depth

bunny. She feeds it daisies from time to time.

(and let's not forget beauty is also a matter of

It's a witch thing.

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Naurim

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We wanted to give our paranoid, battle-fond dwarf

lizardfolk enemies you encounter throughout the

a gritty, scruffy look; and the concept captures this

game, Naruim's beard would've caused severe

intend outstandingly well. His description once

technical problems. So we trimmed down the

read that each of the fifteen braids of his beard

beard to four braids. Or 2 X 2, to cite dwarven

marked a slain scaled foe. In the face of the many

numbers-mysticism.

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Niam

Our half-elven drug addict actually started out as

fit the setting perfectly, as Mengbilla is a place

a joke. During conception of the main characters,

where growing, cooking and selling drugs is a

one of us noted how Niam was still missing a

reputable business. And thus we sold our office

distinctive feat; some kind of obvious negative

joke as a sophisticated design idea, with Niam

quality, '...like, you know, drug problems or some-

becoming our very own 'Drugs are bad kids,

thing.' To his surprise, the team was pretty

mkay?'-story. Nothing autobiographical, though.

enthusiastic about this idea. But then again, it also 12

Takate

Our token forest man took a while to transform

from someone who spent half of his life slaying

from a rather chubby Maori-warrior into the

men and beast in the arena? The cliché of the

arrogant wildcat we imagined. Takate doesn't talk

'noble savage' certainly does not apply in regards

much and his motives are not always obvious.

of Takate. He's a graceful actor in the deadly play

Probably not even to him. But what can one expect

of blood and sand.

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Zurbaran

Zurbaran's stylish hairdo is a polarizing subject:

and larger. It's quite mysterious where all that

some loved the hair, others hated it; and some

hair goes when he puts on a helmet. Anyway: his

even thought it was a pirate hat. During the design

extraordinary haircut is a perfect expression of the

process, from concept, to 3D model and eventu-

southern mage's vanity and also gives him a unique

ally the final portrait, his hairstyle became larger

silhouette.

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Elanor

Creating a concept for a character who dies right in the beginning of the game is pretty luxury. Even with her limited screen time, Elanor is one of the most important characters in the game; her death causes all of the story's conflicts. Since Elanor's a rare sight, due to her early demise, we gave her a hairstyle with high recognition value.

Urias

Due to his extreme change of appearance during the game, Count Urias had to go through conceptphase twice: first as a grumpy, yet kind mentor and the second time as the high priest of personified evil. During this process we also found out the following: if you sacrifice your nose, you'll lose a lot of blood and will probably be confused for an undead. But let's face it: people without noses are an honorable Daedalic tradition.

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Lysander

The philosophical alchemist's son Lysander is among the game's more complex characters. The more surprising it is that our artist Jan Weßbecher nailed it in only a few attempts. After the first Sargent-Pepper-John-Lennon-phase, we already had the concept of a troubled, manic thinker and tinkerer.

The Hero

Developing the protagonist was a tightrope walk. On the one hand, the character should bring along an own personality. On the other hand, we wanted the player to customize their hero as they see fit. The protagonist's conflict is defined by the story, but how exactly the conflict is solved depends on the player. The transition from slacker to tough bastard happens quite fast in the game. So we decided to give the male protagonist the rugged on-the-run look right away, rather than change appearance over time.

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CREATURES

Lizard Men

Lizardfolk are a polarizing bunch. We burned through three artists while trying to find the proper mixture of human and lizard. Eventually, our concept artist Anna Strube more or less returned to the classic concept of the sourcebooks. As a race with an ancient culture, the lizard people needed an own clothing style. We reused elements we already designed for their architecture. Creator of the Achaz battle cries was, by the way, Robert Missler. He's the German voice of Grover from Sesame Street and our raven in 'Chains of Satinav'.

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Ghoul

According to the Pen & Paper rules, anyone who encounters a ghoul for the first time, must make a modified Courage check, or otherwise be frozen in terror. Now all we had to do was to give this pure horror a visual shape. In contrast to the sourcematerial-ghouls, Blackguards-ghouls can not only be encountered on graveyards, but also in remote caverns and deep dungeons. As darkness-dwellers, they rely on sound and smell. So, no need for eyes, right?

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Cave Dragon

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Fornonfur, the cave dragon adorns the

creature living a subterranean life. And just like a

Blackguards Logo. So it might sound strange that

mole, Fornonfur can't see all that well. What he

our initial inspirations for him were a mole and

lacks in eyesight, though, he compensates through

a sand puppy. The former lend us its shovel-like

excellent hearing and smell. He'll know if some

claws, the other the pale albino skin, befitting a

ragtag adventurers want to steal his treasure.

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Crypt Louse The grinning crypt louse was the team's underdoglove. Accordingly, crypt lice slippers and a screaming crypt-louse-plushy were in high demand. The little crawler was one of our first 3D creatures and was thus abused as a frequent placeholder by our game designers.

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Wood Troll

The wood troll is a good example for things working great in the books, but that are challenging to implement in a game. The source material describes a wood troll as a silent hunter, setting up ambushes for any who dare to harm the forest. Now you have a hulking treant-creature that moves in silence and is perfectly camouflaged...yeah, sounds like a glitch if you have this on screen, right? So, the earth shattering attacks of our troll didn't turn out that subtle.

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Maru

Another instance, where sourcebooks and video

like this. Not very intimidating, is it? Thus, the arms

game clash: the maru. According to descriptions,

of our marus are a good deal longer, but they still

these lizardfolk-relatives have very short arms

look unimpressive compared to their large hunches

(think T-Rex), yet they're dual wielding heavy

and massive thighs.

sabers. Imagine fighting animations for a creature

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Black Ogre

'Terror of the Forests', that's what they're called. Black ogres are considerably less dim-witted than their pale northern counterparts. They are able to tracelessly stalk through the forest. This advantage however, falls flat in Blackguards, as black ogres are mainly encountered in arenas across the game.

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Flying Lizard

The flying lizard is an Achaz mount. Originally, we wanted to go for canopy dragons in their stead. These are small dragons with a magpie attitude (they're always after the shinies). But after lizard people became more important to the story it was a natural decision to let go of the dragons and bring in the flying lizards. It's also a lot less corny.

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Morfu

During our research in dusty old books and on the Discovery Channel, we've seen a lot of unbelievable stuff that is actually existing. We not only drew inspiration from various sea cucumbers and snails, but also the human body, brains and innards gave some good references. All that was missing, were some vibrant colors.

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Stone Golem

Seasoned Aventurian wizards can create golems from all kids of materials, even from sand or human remains. Needless to say, our artists' creativity went haywire when prompted to design a golem. Eventually, we settled for the classic: a golem carved from stone. Less a classic is its asymmetric shape. At first, the golem still had a head and was less bulky. Then we trimmed the right parts (the head) and extended it in other parts, like arms and legs. Very subtle.

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Swamp Ape

The red-eyed baboons are among the signature beasts of the 'Dark Eye'. During our daring expeditions into the marshes of Loch Harodrôl we encountered this special horned specimen; it's probably the result of a failed transmutation or chimera experiment. Horns or not, the swamp ape is inherently a coward and will only attack in packs.

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Giant Ape

At some points during development, we felt like we were in some kind of old Ray Harryhausen film, with all those giant lice, giant crocodiles, spiders and slugs. Of course we went the extra mile and included the obligatory giant ape. Our personal tribute to the creator of King Kong. He's not quite as large as Kong. You should dodge his swings, anyway.

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Zombie

Creative lead Florian Pett is a certificated horrormovie specialist. Accordingly, you can't have Blackguards without zombies. Many of the first story concepts even revolved around a necromancy plot. Aside from undead people, the whole place was literally crawling with reanimated apes, wolves, spiders and anything else providing a corpse for the enemy-lists.

Skeleton

Details are a tricky thing in regards of skeletons. Give them a too delicate...skeleton...and your 3D model will turn into a pathetic heap of pixels. So, if our animated bones lack a few ribs or vertebrae it's not just because we cannot count, but also due to esthetic reasons. There were also some spirited discussions if skeletons could shoot with bow and arrow.

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Wood Spider Another fantasy-evergreen. Contrary to the original plan, we decided against an arachnophobia patch that would replace all spiders with cuddly critters. Arachnophobes on the team even admitted our wood spiders had a therapeutic effect on them.

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Iribaarlily

This demonic plant was a challenge in regards of visuals, as well as game mechanics. Iribaar is the archdemon of deception; thus, the visible part of his treacherous plant is nothing but an alluring illusion. The original concept, where every combat turn only one part of the lily would be vulnerable, however, caused so much confusion among players that we decided to leave this feature out completely.

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Jungle Tiger

The jungle tiger is pretty much just as it is described in the sourcebooks. A tiger's a tiger, after all. Doesn't give that much wiggle room and that again kind of dulls down the design process. Of course, our jungle tiger is still the most beautiful, yet fearsome jungle tiger out there.

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Kraken Newt

The kraken and the dragon share the high score of the largest creatures in the game. And that makes this beast a particularly hard nut to crack. Can you engage its head in melee? If so, does the kraken swim into shallow waters? And if not, can you just dispose that beast in ranged combat, without any real danger? As an amphibian, the kraken newt could theoretically leave the water. But then again, that wouldn't play well with all the tentacles, since they're not “really” connected to the body for gameplay reasons. Eventually, only the tentacles can be physically attacked. A simple, yet elegant solution to that problem.

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Giant Caiman

Fully fledged giant caimans can grow to a length of six meters. The ones roaming the Wild South in Blackguards are not quite as long, since they somehow have to fit on seven hexes.

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Environment

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Achaz Architecture

The lizard people of today live in rather primitive

human feelings and mindsets. Recurring elements

settlements in the swamps. There are, however,

in our design are abstract dragon and crocodile

still remains of their ancient high culture scattered

teeth. A display of worship towards the ancient

across the south. Art and architecture of the Achaz

Achaz gods. The Eternal Valley, where the cult of

is based on Aztec designs. Apart from these Aztec

the Nameless God built their temple, is a long for-

elements we also threw in bits of very strange

gotten ancient Achaz city. It has been occupied and

architecture-elements; as a reminder that what you

corrupted by the followers of the dark god. That's

deal with is built by a race that is alienated from

why human and Achaz elements mix in this place.

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Mengbilla

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Mengbilla, city of poisoners, could be best com-

where everyone ruthlessly works towards their

pared to a fantasy-version of Istanbul. It's a melting

own ends. It's quite fascinating, how diverse you

pot of many different people from all kinds of

can build a city, even if you got only a hand-

cultures: Southerners, Tulamides, Horasians, and

ful variations of rocks and wood. We had a vast

people from the Middenrealm. Here, things are

modular system for creating the buildings. These

tolerated that are forbidden or banned in other

single parts built the city like toy blocks. Just like

regions, like poison, drugs, slavery and black magic.

everything else, the modular system came out way

It is a menacing city of masquerade and intrigues,

bigger than we planned.

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Horasian Empire

Someone once said, Aventuria is like an early renaissance Germany, surrounded by the Germans' favorite holiday resorts. We gladly let ourselves be inspired by this and when designing the Horasian Empire, we visually went for a Tuscany look. There are a lot of cubic, yellowed houses and cypresses throughout the scenery

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„

Skeleton archers are bullshit. They lack the focus to aim at a long-distance target, the brains to actually hunt something and like a berserker, they lack the patience needed for archery; and above all, a skeleton with bow and arrow looks ridiculous. - Florian Pett

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The World Map

Our world map is the work of Miriam Kranz. Originally, we designed it as a 3D map . The first attempts looked really promising, but also let the wild south look like a miniature railway landscape. So we kept the map itself in 3D, but used 2d models for all the objects.

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Detailmaps

We intended the detail maps to save us some time

tougher than we thought. We ditched the first try

and work. We didn't want to have to create whole

and made another attempt where we designed a

catacombs and graveyards, so if certain areas were

map with 3D objects...which also failed. One artist

connected, we illustrated that through maps with

after another took their shot at map design. This

similar mechanics as the world map. Those details

process was ongoing until the project's very end.

maps were not only supposed to be functional, but

By now, we've become specialists for both, maps

they also had to be visually appealing. That was

that work and those that don't.

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INVENTORY

Slave's Death

Slasher

Hunting Knife

Knife

Thriller

Weapons Pickaxe

Weapons are, of course, a tactical game's heart and

truly is something special. Similar to buildings,

soul. There are more than 100 different weapons

weapons have a modular design. This way, differ-

to be found (and equipped) in Blackguards. Magic

ent blades could be combined with different hilts.

weapons, by the way, are pretty rare in Aventuria.

Weapon-purists may roll their eyes now, but in this

They aren't exactly standard issue in Blackguards,

case, visual battlefield appeal beats realism.

either. Finding a magic or even blessed weapon

Basilisk Tongue

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Gambeson

Horasian Cavalry Armor

Plate Amor

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Leather Coat

Kuslikan Lamellar

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Robe

Iriyan Armor

Chaincover

Caftan

Gladiator

Bronze Plate

Brigantine

Brabakcoat

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Icons

All in all, there are more than 300 items to pick up in Blackguards. Among them more than 100 different weapons, more than 80 different pieces of clothing and armor and about 30 potions and poisons. And each item got a very own icon drawn for them.

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Wallpaper

Credits

Lead Artist

Lead Concept Art

Stefan Wacker

Anna Mirona Strube

3D Artists - Creatures

Concept Art

Max Lenneper

Jan Weßbecher

Michael Teske

Annika Sauerland

Francois Debrabandere

Stefanie Kick Tobias Trebelja

3D Artist - Environment

Asim Steckel Manuel Vormwald

Janne Paulsen

Stephanie Stutz

Stefan Wacker

Julia Metzger

Patrick Geiss 2D Art Lead 3D Animations Eike Mosler

Daniel Reimann Thomas Sigl Miriam Kranz

3D Animations Pixable

Artbook Tanja Rohlfs (Layout) Tilman Schanen (Text)