An incarnate, mean cloud of wasps on a mission to decode magic 🐝

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What happens when, in a world of magic, you have a scientist adamant to prove it a theorem of physics and the gods falsities?

A world of pain.

Which is precisely what I’ve recently had the chance to explore by playing Zaktan in a dark fantasy roleplaying game.

January started off less than ideally for me with a lingering Covid infection. During my recovery, other than watching a variety of films and shows I had neglected (The Mask, Nimona, and The Umbrella Academy to name a few), a friend suggested running a short campaign in Heart: the City Below system.

Despite its name, it’s far from romantic and touching… unless tragedy warms you up.

In this grim setting - where distortion, mutation and chaos bring your deepest vulnerabilities to life - characters are destined for demise, and there are no happy endings.

See their website.

It’s set in my friend Kings’ (Kazylgon on Tumblr) homebrew setting, a multi-ringed construct floating in space, tenuously held together by artificial machines and untamed magic. No one understands the workings of it… least of all its internals.

Zaktan - one of the characters you can date in Hateship - is as awful here as in the original Bionicle setting, if not worse. A conspirator not just obsessed with the secrets of the underworld, but decoding magic to expose the gods. And… well… you can imagine a scientist isn’t too welcome in academia based on spells and arcane recipes. Let alone heresy!

Zaktan in all his glory, with the crankiest of expressions. He looks like an elf, but thanks to some experiments in the lab that he toooootally set up on purpose, he’s now a cloud of biomechanical wasps (a nice little throwback to his original setting). Only his labcoat and backpack (not pictured) are solid, the rest of him is like an illusion of a person.

Elf felt like a good fit because there’s a spindly elegance to him, and the sharp ears mimic the horns of his original design. The idea of someone mistaking him for having poise, then revealing what a pretentious, vile, rude snark he is, cracks me up.

Case in point:

Left belongs to Blue, right to Socket.

To add another subverted expectation: the seemingly formidable undead character at left must be the most competent fighter, yes? Nah. They use the giant sword more like an oversized pocket knife.

The real murderer in the team is, lo and behold, Zaktan. Despite lacking proper fighting stats, just a few dangerous abilities, the dice spoke, successfully exploding bodies within through wasp overload. So, I’ll be investing in that now. Deadly nerd.

While I may not provide regular updates on this game, I may touch on some major events from time to time.

I am looking forward to running Zaktan into the ground with his hubris! Whether that’s in roleplay or written form. Playing a character is one of the best ways to really explore their entire arc and personality.

Have you ever explored a character in a different medium? Send me a reply with how they evolved.

Project updates

Since Zaktan is dominating my thoughts lately, I’ll likely turn my attention to him following Thok.

Speaking of… how’s our charming sleaze going anyway?

Admittedly, I missed my 12th January deadline, but I finished him just last week!

Look at that. Exactly on time. Didn’t take more attention than Avak after all!

Major scenes and their spaghetti routes finally aligned, with a significant trimming of text that led nowhere. Feels like clearing a wardrobe full of junk.

Throughout the process of writing the first two characters, I’ve come to realize that refining each one takes several months. While I won’t let that discourage me, I will accelerate production time. Apart from writing for 20-40min on public transport, I will add another 20min upon arriving home.

The art is also making progress, namely on noir film still studies.

Lately, I’ve grappled with two challenges:

• Scaling - determining a character’s size on screen and the scene shot, including the objects within. My previous attempts felt too zoomed in.
• Populating a scene with objects - related to the above, planning big shapes to frame a character was easy, but smaller details felt random and cluttered. But planning it all ahead was also too exhausting.

With these studies, I ‘measured’ the scale of space on the screen. Scenes can be simplified with basic shapes, ignoring what they represent. This approach, to play with the silhouette shapes even before knowing the content, allows me to have a feeling for what fits into a shot, and then decide on the objects.

Until next time, which may be the end of this month or in March!

stay sharp, Jennifer

Production Timeline

Zaktan’s editing by 23rd February, 2024. Strategies in place:

• Write on tablet during train trips: 40 min.
• Write when arriving home from work and on weekends: 20 min.
• 1hr a week on art and placeholder assets.
• use my task manager, with a Gantt chart, to break up the writing into smaller goals and schedule them ahead.

Final release date not yet announced.

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