abyssalbrews

Staff of the Reefswarm (Collab with The Fluffy Folio, Mark Drummond J, & McRoMusic)

Added 2022-03-31 16:00:09 +0000 UTC

Greetings everyone!

This is a very special release this week as we were able to collaborate with some wonderful creators to bring you a package that we’re extremely proud of. Combining with The Fluffy Folio for a creature, Mark Drummond J for a map set, and McRoMusic for a soundtrack allowed us to put together a creepy little underwater encounter pack that we think you’ll love. It was amazing working with these creators and I recommend you check them out:

The Fluffy Folio is creating quirky monsters and potions for your Dungeons & Dragons worlds. If you are looking for creatures that offer chances for interactions outside of "just kill it", you came to the right place!

https://www.patreon.com/the_fluffy_folio

MarkDrummondJ is creating unique otherworldly battlemaps and environments for TTRPGs, with designs often encompassing both Science Fiction and Fantasy. 2-3 times a month patrons receive a new release containing detailed hand drawn battlemaps and ready to play FoundryVTT modules.

Support Mark on patreon - https://www.patreon.com/markdrummondj

McRoMusic has been playing and composing music for nearly 20 years and is an avid tabletop RPG fan. Now he's married the two, and is creating high-quality music for players and GMs to enjoy at their table! McRoMusic can be found on Spotify (and anywhere else that you stream your music), and also has a Bandcamp store and Patreon if you would like to support him directly.

https://www.patreon.com/mcromusic

Our patrons get early access to all of these items as well as additional formats that are easily usable in both physical and online play. Additionally they get high-res art exports, easy to use text exports, behind the scenes updates, and a lot more.

If that strikes your fancy, consider becoming a Patron

Design notes from Matthew:

Oh man, this was a blast to work on with the rest of these amazing creators. We had an idea early to do something underwater as we really love the concept of fights taking place in 3 Dimensional space. The ability to move around freely underwater presents an interesting arena and we wanted to present that in an engaging way.

Fernando had the initial idea of something that would let you control a swarm and I was all about it from the moment he mentioned it. I wanted it to be a powerful, persistent helper and therefore it needed to be a pretty powerful weapon in itself. I settled on making it legendary early on and set to work giving it abilities that could give damage, debuffs, and buffs. I always like giving our items options for the user and this was no different.

We had an initial concept where it would also allow you to “wild shape” into the creature that Fluffy is creating, but it just made the item a bit unwieldy as it was trying to do too much. Don’t worry though, I’m sure there will be opportunities for that in the future.

Illustration notes from Fernando:

I love doing these collabs; it allows us to work closely with amazing creators, the ideation process is a ton of fun, and it also gives our Patrons even more value for their money; Matt is great at setting these up, it’s really tricky to fit them into our schedule sometimes but that’s part of his very broad and effective skill set!

Art-wise it was a lot of fun to do an underwater themed item, I obviously drew inspiration for the staff from different types of Coral and the swarm went through several iterations, most of which were shrimp-like initially.

It was fun to draw the little swarm too, one of the milestones I’ve been trying to reach with my artwork is brush stroke economy and the swarm allowed me to exercise that muscle by having lots of detail on the foreground swarm creatures but going increasingly more abstract they smaller they go to while still reading as detailed as the foreground ones to our brain.

Working with fellow creators like this is one of my favorite things about this whole gig. Each of them are stunningly talented and I fully recommend that you check out their Patreon offerings if you have the means. I’m so glad we were able to put something together and get it to you. We hope you enjoy it!

We highly encourage you to join our Discord server where you’ll get access to exclusive channels that have sneak peeks, behind the scenes chatter, and more.