DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 48D: Alchestrin’s Mural
Through the last arch leading out of the hall they headed down a narrowed hallway. At its end – perhaps a hundred feet or so further on – they could see a huge bas relief depicting a wolf’s skull that took up the entire wall. But before they reached the bas relief, they came to a pair of facing doorways.
Passing through one of these they found themselves in a semi-circular chamber. The far, curved wall of the place was covered in an immense, detailed mural. Although the paint was faded and chipped here and there, it was still impressive in its scope and artisanship. Ranthir, in particular, was fascinated by it. And while the others kept a nervous guard in the hall, he studied it in detail.
The full perusal of its contents made them suspicious of Lord Zavere again. If the man depicted in the mural had fought against Ghul the Skull-King, why had the crystal of Castle Shard attacked him?
I’m not a visual artist.
My sketches are crude and even my mini-painting is rudimentary at best.
But the world, of course, is filled with art. I want that reflected in my campaign worlds. Art is a tangible expression of both culture and individual personality. It’s a powerful tool for setting the scene and creating a palpable sense of place. You can use it to reinforce themes. The cracked cup with the finger-painting of a swan can tell the story of a character and a tapestry can capture the tale of an entire nation.
Nor is it limited to the halls of the rich. I’m reminded of the painting from the dilapidated Spouter-Inn in Moby-Dick:
On one side hung a very large oil painting so thoroughly besmoked, and every way defaced, that in the unequal crosslights by which you viewed it, it was only by diligent study and a series of systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of the neighbors, that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its purpose. Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New England hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched. But by dint of much and earnest contemplation, and oft repeated ponderings, and especially by throwing open the little window towards the back of the entry, you at last come to the conclusion that such an idea, however wild, might not be altogether unwarranted.
But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber, portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast. A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to drive a nervous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of indefinite, half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze you to it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find out what that marvellous painting meant. Ever and anon a bright, but, alas, deceptive idea would dart you through.—It’s the Black Sea in a midnight gale.—It’s the unnatural combat of the four primal elements.—It’s a blasted heath.—It’s a Hyperborean winter scene.—It’s the breaking-up of the icebound stream of Time. But at last all these fancies yielded to that one portentous something in the picture’s midst. That once found out, and all the rest were plain. But stop; does it not bear a faint resemblance to a gigantic fish? even the great leviathan himself?
In fact, the artist’s design seemed this: a final theory of my own, partly based upon the aggregated opinions of many aged persons with whom I conversed upon the subject. The picture represents a Cape-Horner in a great hurricane; the half-foundered ship weltering there with its three dismantled masts alone visible; and an exasperated whale, purposing to spring clean over the craft, is in the enormous act of impaling himself upon the three mast-heads.
That’s more florid than a description I would attempt at the gaming table. Yet the intention and effect is the same.
But art is more than just set dressing. It encodes exposition into the environment, rewarding exploration, study, and attention to detail. It can peel back the layers of history in a moldering ruin. (Sometimes literally as ancient murals peek through cracking plaster.) And it can also conceal DaVinci Code-style secret lore.
Again, though, I’m not an artist. So how can I incorporate this kind of stuff into my campaign?
One option is to coopt existing graphical resources: RPG sourcebooks, stock art, and online image searches can all give you stuff to work from.
(If you’ve created a fictional piece of art, of course, it can be difficult to find an existing piece that matches it. But if you reverse the creative process — look for cool art and use it to inspire the other aspects of the adventure — it can be a lot easier.)
As you can see in the current session, however, I’ll also evoke art through text by preparing art handouts. In practice, these are very similar to lore books.
Obviously this is not appropriate for every piece of art, but I find them particularly effective for murals, tapestries, triptychs and the like. If you’re embedding clues in the art, the handout gives the players a physical reminder and reference. You can reward skill checks by giving the player the handout to share with the group, empowering them to roleplay the voice of expertise discussing the artwork.
Another tip is to include evocative visual snippets in the handout. This is great when you find an image that feels right, but can’t encompass the whole. I often do this with collections, for example: I have one image of a statue in the right style and with the appropriate subject, but there are twenty statues in the collection. I can include the image to evoke the look of the statues, while describing the full collection in the handout.
Campaign Journal: Session 49A – Running the Campaign: TBD
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index
