Desire & The Dead: A Call For Art!

*Spoiler Alert*

There's some scenario info in here

So basically, this thread is me begging.

Hopefully many of you will have checked out Desire And The Dead, my stab at a fully-worked introductory adventure for Planescape 3e. Its now going to final review with my playtesters (I've turned the latest draft over wholesale for their red-penned criticism), after which, I'm going to take it into the final editing/reviewing stage. As I start to consider the final format (and trust me Clueless and the rest of you guys and gals, I'm about to get in touch), this seems like an appropriate time to bring up the subject of artwork.

You might have heard me say previously on the boards that I have no artistic talent whatsoever. I can't stress enough how true that statement is. That's why I'm asking/begging/pleading/selling my firstborn child if anyone out there has any art they'd like to contribute to the effort. I have a little already, which I'll post below, but the more's the merrier. Obviously, all contributers will be fully credited and receive gushing praise from me forever.

I'm looking for new peices if anyone feels inspired, or anything you have existing that you think might fit the scene. Ultimately, I might be open to changing descriptions/details in the scenario to fit a good picture that doesn't match my text.

Below I've listed lots of NPCs, scenes, and locations from the adventure to hopefully get your juices flowing. I'd like to stress that they are not preferences or an exclusive list at all - nor do I expect to get pieces matched to all the ideas below. In some cases (mostly where the description is detailed or there's flavour text) I have includied it. Other creatures don't really have a description yet. Other than the list here, I'd encourage anybody who thinks they might be interested in looking through the scenario itself and the (generally hilarious) playtest reports for more information and ideas.

A Cover

This would be great - not to mention essential.

Monsters/People

Bald Grum
...a heavy-set man with a wrinkled grey pate and a flattened wreck of a nose. He’s currently wearing a red sash with gold lacing (Knowledge: Factions & guilds 10 reveals this is the ‘badge’ of the Council of innkeepers). Owner of the Whispered Word, he is renowned as a miser and hard bargainer, but at least an honest one. He approaches the meeting with a brusque, business-like attitude and does not suffer fools. Grum is a member of the Fated, although he no longer wear’s the faction’s badge or calls attention to his membership.

Berk – Average
Berk – Sly
Berk – Urchin
Berk – Violent

Bloodmouths
A gang of ghoul/vampire wannabes

Brunathel the Worthy
Master artificer and creator of the Thurible of desire

Brunathel’s Assistant
A rogue modron

The Bugbear Brothers (random encounter in the Pyres)
They’re bugbears. If you’ve ever seen The Barbarian Brothers “acting”, then you know who I mean…

Deadwick

Dustman/Dustwoman

Dustman Zombies

Dykos the maimed
Before you is slumped a palid and shaking dwarf, his features as white and angular as cut marble. He flinches as you enter, then struggles to recover his nerve. His face is badly bruised but he bares a far greater wound: His left hand is wrapped in a bloodstained bandage, and is missing three of its fingers.

“Who-who are you?” he stutters.

Eyes Desire
The villainess
This circular chamber is adorned with cushioned couches and silk awnings, the air alive with exotic scents. Light is provided only by a single lantern - but it is an exquisite thing, a perfect replica of the Festhall crafted from silver and stained glass. It rotates slowly on a clockwork base, sending arching shadows in a slow spiral around the room.

Behind it rests an alluring figure; human with the subtle touch of something else. She wears a revealing dress of black and red, highlighted with gold jewellery that sparkles at the slightest touch of light.

Although she appears unarmed, guards of many races stand discreetly around the room, dressed as harem eunuchs in sashes and silk. Each has a freshly oiled falchion in its hand, whose tip rests lightly on the carpeted floor.

Eyes Desire’s “harem” of bodyguards

Factotum Ambergris

Deadwick

Skin as taut and dry as paper, a few strands of frail white hair, the skeletal frame and a lipless rictus grin. These are the traits that visitors remember, if they return at all from Deadwick’s tower. They also speak of bubbling poisons, the scent of brimstone, and the guttering of their torches and lanterns… for even magical light falters within the looming gloom of his abode. Deadwick (real name unknown) is a withered corpse in Dustman robes

Dustman cleric

Fat Lemure and its Tortured Zombie Slaves (from The Damsel’s Descent location)

Finger’s the Ghoul
It’s the eye-watering stench that first attracts you to this odd passer-by: The figure reeks of death and incense, a cloying scent that becomes overpowering as he draws near. He’s a Dustman but seems highly agitated - Hissing and muttering issues constantly from beneath his filthy hood:

‘No no no... failing…failing…not falling to dust, Fingers is…. Fingers… fingers…. Mmm..... The True Death, the True Death…mustn’t give in, mustn’t know it. Need the quiet hole where it was… fingers must be good and not-not…like that again…no, oh no no no....”

Glory the Jinkskirt (from “a tale of blood and gold”)

Gnarlybone
...Cautious young half-elf; charming, precocious, and unashamedly cowardly. He is skeletally thin and sports a shaven head, prominent joints, and long fingers. He usually wears nondescript ragged garments of poor quality. Only seventeen years old, Gnarlybone is still a child by the standards of his race, but experienced in the ways of the Hive. He grew up as an urchin in the Grey District and genuinely loves the Wailer Square folk. ‘Gnarlybone’ is the moniker the other urchins gave him as a boy. He doesn’t remember his parents or know his real name.

Don't forget his pet - Skiffy the albino fiendish dire rat

Granny Marduk, the fortune teller
Granny’s ebony flesh may be marred by a mass of wrinkles, but her eyes and smile are bright. Her bead costume rattles as she shuffles a deck of tatted cards with ancient but still nimble fingers. She lays them face down on the table before her, the faded image of a bladed face looking out from their backs.

Jaime Foultongue
Jaime fights naked, painted in woad, hair spiked with grease, and wielding a greatsword

Joculators
From a distance the Joculators might be mistaken for Dustmen, but a Spot check (DC 10) reveals that they are actually wearing black-dyed jester’s motley under their robes. Of course, they’re also shouting and capering and acting like total barmies most of the time too. Each Xaosetic wears an excessive amount of amulets and funerary jewellery, including a dozen cheap holy symbols. They also carry a selection of funerary equipment: A skull-shaped brazier, a huge ceremonial candlestick, and the Thurible of Desire.

Grimjaw the Githzerai
The Joculators' sour-faced bodyguard from the Minder's Guild

Greenjackets
Old Toadface’s gang

Immigrant Protection League
Gang, mainly newcomer indeps

Laughing Dustmen (encounter 13)
The PCs witness a Dustman acting strangely: Laughing, weeping, raging, or displaying some other outburst of emotion. The Dustman is bundled into the Mortuary by his companions before the PCs can interfere. The porters on the gate deny everything.

Lanis the Deathmonger
He's just plain mean

Lord Madrigore, the vampire (from “a tale of blood and gold”)
“Posh berk, he was. Unusual enough in these parts. But the thing is, he… he wanted to drink my blood. Just a little, he said. He was swaying back and forth, all unfocused, like he was drunk - but his eyes were red as coals and he had fangs like a fiend. He drooled… I’m no coney and told him to pike it, nice as I could. But he begged me, seemed desperate. He grabbed me so hard by the shoulders that I still have the bruises! I thought he was going to kill me but then he just let me go. Told me to get away from him. Suddenly he was in tears. I just blitzed it out of there. Sodding barmy.”

“He always wears a heavy cloak, with a deep pointed hood and red edging. Underneath it he wears black silk and lace, expensive. I’d have said he was about fifty cycles old, handsome but savage-looking. Skin so pale it was sickly, thick dark hair, clean chinned but with braided mutton-chops. He wears a heavy iron amulet, the Dustman sign. He was always polite when he turned us down before.”

Lord Winsome
Theatrical Quasit from the Pyres

Mister Click, the ettercap surgeon (random encounter in the Pyres)
I always imagine him dressed in victorian high-collared cloak and top hat, liek Jack the Ripper.

Mortuary Guardians
Giant skeletons carrying skull-topped staves

Mother Xero
...normally a kind and gentle old woman, though she has skin like cracked red leather and small ivory horns. Recently affected by the Thurible, she is visibly angry and may well snap at PCs during the meeting. She wears a holy symbol of Wee Jas over her grey robes, but is a mortician, not a priest.

Narma the Loud
Narma’s not a handsome man, but has great skill in contorting his face and body into a semblance of grief. He’s perhaps fifty cycles old, but looks much older. Narma works throughout the city, but advertises his services with free demonstrations in Wailer’s Square, alongside his fellow wailers. Narma is their leader by virtue of his superior skills (he is in fact a 3rd level bard) and organisational ability.

Ogre Brothers
Sven-ole, Stunt Bosi, and Ygg – three Ysgardian ogres (barbarians) who have set up a rough drinking den.

Protector Nymon
Greasy Knigh of the Post, seller of potions

Sablune of the Third Great Delve (Blighthouse)
Pompus earth mephit

Sensate Festhall Guards

Silent Brom
...talks rarely - for him actions speak louder than words. He is a dark-haired, scarred, and square jawed basher, tragically afflicted with rotting consumption and a wracking cough. Caught on the Lower Planes some years ago, this thankfully uncomunicatable disease is slowly withering him away. A retired adventurer and widower originally from a Prime world, Brom is a shrewd judge of character and a fearless if careful man. He deeply regrets that he’s too sickly to take up arms and sort this problem out himself.

Sougad Sodkiller
Sougad Sodkiller is a bitter berk, genuinely unlucky and convinced that his lot in life is to receive the short end of the stick. For example, Sougad happens to share his name with a famous serial killer of Sigil’s recent past (‘Sougad Lawshredder’ from the published adventure Harbinger House) and gets rather annoyed by berks making uncomplimentary references to him, those events, and his current Faction.

Undead Harmonium (Blighthouse)

Veese the Doppelganger (random encounter in the Pyres)

Yavaka the Barguest (random encounter in the Pyres)

Yip the Manic Dire Weasel (Joculator Pet, Blighthouse)

Yoogah & Sooth (random encounter in the Pyres)
The arch was once a grandiose doorway but now leads only to a single ruined chamber. The corners are blocked with rubble, but the centre has been cleared. Here sit a pair of inhuman bashers playing some kind of game, using a combination of cards and a handful of painted knucklebones. A small pile of copper coins and trinkets are piled between them, on top of some bulging leather sacks that serve as their table

Places

The Hive
The Grey District
The Pyres,
Lower Ward
The Civic Festhall
Brunathel’s shop
Blighthouse

Key Scenes

Zombie Theft (Encounter 20)
The PCs come across some scruffy, suspicious-looking berks carrying 1d3 long cloth-wrapped parcels. Each parcel is carried by two thieves, actually thugs from the Day Labourers Guild. Their illicit cargos are bodies – zombies in fact, stolen from Jaime’s yard. PCs are likely to stop the rogues based purely on their shiftiness, but Spot checks (DC 15) will confirm that their parcels look suspiciously like bodies. When challenged, the thieves will either drop their cargo and run (if the PCs outnumber them or are well-known killers) or make ready for a fight. The thieves can’t control the zombies, but will just send them lurching forward at the PCs. The zombies themselves will stagger forward for a few rounds (potentially looking quite menacing), but then just stand there.

An encounter with a “Hiveward Hazard”
(razorvine, ooze puddle, choking smog, or a blade falls off a building)

A funeral / Procession of Death Priests

A PC gets takes a darkmantle to the face…
(from Blighthouse)

Brother Bones and Brother Solace being attacked by the Allips (from “a tale of blood and gold”)

As the PCs grow closer the Great Mortuary, a chorus of whispering reaches their ears. On the very steps of the Great Mortuary and under the watchful gaze of the Guardians, a trio of dark figures dance around another pair in their centre – all of them seemingly in Dustman robes. Of these latter two, one is on his knees with hands clasped over his ears, while the other stands motionless beside him. The three figures that twirl around are the source of the whispered chanting; they seem to almost fly round and around, waving their arms like some macabre and disturbing dance.

The Battle of Shuffle Street
A terrible screeching tune is the first sign of the Pariahs’ approach, if you can call such a dire cacophony ‘music’ at all. Howling, banging, and clanging, the Proud Pariahs make their way up Shuffle Street like a carnival coming to town; a carnival accompanied by terrified screams the smell of burning flesh. As the last refugees come fleeing past, you catch your first good skeg at the fiend gang that’s here to put you in the Dead Book:

The mass is easily thirty strong, and swaggers up the street with easy confidence. First come a wave of cackling imps, gibbering and laughing as they fly from lintel to lintel. Behind these come a pair of bludderous fiends, like the bloated corpses of obese dwarfs. They each holds up a long pole, like a banner. Tied to those are prisoners broken by torture and seared by fire. They moan and twitch in wretched agony with every step - Sharky and Dru, leaders of the Grey District gangs.

The rest of the Proud Pariahs fill the street behind their heralds – a mix of misshapen fiends and monsters surrounded by scabrous tieflings smeared with ash. These capering beggar-musicians clash gongs and cymbals of copper, sound battered horns, beat drums made from freshly stretched flesh, and tap out a jaunty beat with bloody bones.

Rash himself strides along in the centre of his mob, a gaunt figure covered in sticky red gore and giant crimson blisters. A lipless mouth grins beneath a skull-like face, behind which a curving ivory horn sweeps up and over his head – a delicate silver bell dangling from its tip. He cheerfully waves a conductor’s baton to direct the dreadful noise, as he almost dances with up the street towards you.

The Proud Pariahs

Rash Redwelt
Rash leads the Proud Pariahs with a mix of brutal intimidation, bold speeches, and clever planning. He’s inventive and cunning rather than a skilled tactician, and is rather theatrical; Rash enjoys talking bit and putting on a show for his victims. Babau with huge red boils on his skin.

Tar Mouth
Tar Mouth is a highly unusual dretch, the match of Rash is cunning if not intelligence. Its lower jaw is bruise-coloured, distended and loose, and constantly foams with thick black drool giving it a slurping lisp. Survival is always Tar Mouth’s primary aim but his real skill is in appearing too useful to be expendable. He serves as Rash’ second in command and messenger.

Féregnyúlván
Féregnyúlván is a Karaycai or ‘spellslinger demon’, a grey worm-like Tanar’ri who served as torturer for Rash’ unit before it absconded. It communicates via telepathy but cannot control it: everyone within ten feet of the creature hears what it"says" –a constant mantra of the hideous tortures it plans to perform. See Planewalker.com’s ‘Creature Codex’ for more information.

Gerr the Troll
Gerr is a typical gangly troll; more scarred by fire and acid than his primer kin (planars being a canny lot) but otherwise much the same as trolls everywhere: He’s reckless, violent, and has little sense of his own mortality.

Retch & Puke
Retch and Puke are particularly strong but mindless dretches, baring a superficial resemblance to the bloated corpses of beardless dwarfs. A telepathic “Want kill…” is about as sophisticated as they can get. They only take orders from Rash or Tar Mouth: Retch and Puke feel a strange mix of jealousy and reverence for Tar Mouth because he can speak. Retch and Puke initially attack with their banner poles (treat as long spears), but will drop them and change to natural weapons if commanded to. They both fight to the death.

Snatch & Voop
These hordlings are the last remaining of a pack that once haunted to Pyre District. Their fellows were massacred by the Pariahs, but these two were spared because Rash saw the usefulness of a pair of skilled thieves – skilled but small and weak enough to push around. The pair steal effectively but almost instinctively, like jackdaws. Their statistics are drawn from Planewalker.com’s Creature Codex.

Snatch looks like a hideous halfling, buried under the loose folds of his own flesh. He can stretch himself taut however, gaining five feet of height and a reach of 10ft. He’s skilled in unarmed combat and attacks in a tangle or limbs that can send opponents crashing to the ground. Voop has mottled skin like a crocodile, wings like a dragonfly, and a face that’s a cross between a leech and a tentacle. Voop can spew a stream of acrid vomit on opponents for 2d4 acid damage, and also use his ‘tongue’ (a thin prehensile tendril set with thorn-like hooks) to pick locks.

Mad Tiefling Beggars

The Quasits