Home of the Shab-al-Hiri Roach

Fair Play

Thanks, Luke!

Posted by Jason on February 28th, 2007 — in Check this out dude

Luke Crane went to Auschwitz and snapped a mess of photos in the Polish museum, which apparently has a lot more material on Poland’s heroic resistance than it does on, you know, the Poles who were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau. One of these I hadn’t seen before:
Parsol guys and girl
These kids appear to be members of the Parasol Battalion. I’ve seen the girl in other photos as well. I think she might be Anula, a sixteen year old nurse who was killed on 15 September. Big thanks to Luke for thinking of me during his trip to Poland.

The Art Keeps Comin’

Posted by Jason on February 28th, 2007 — in Check this out dude, Design

And it keeps being fantastic. Here’s a crop from Jeff’s latest:
Grey Ranks:  The Kiss
The caption, which will appear opposite the piece in the game, reads: “A furtive rendezvous: Irka and Pelikan’s last kiss, in Irka’s bedroom at number 12, Elekcyjna Street, Wola.” Uncropped, the picture sort of expands into a world completely on fire. There’s a lot there – check out Irka’s pacifier, the sampler she did in 1937, fifteen-year-old Janek in the street wondering WTF is going on. I’m rewriting all the example text to accurately reflect the sequence of events in the illustrations, which means playing an entire three-session game in my head. Which is fun.

Grey Ranks Minis!

Posted by Jason on February 20th, 2007 — in Check this out dude

Tom (bluegargantua over at the Forge) pointed me to these 1/35 scale Warsaw Uprising partisans, including a Girl Guide! They look great.

Grey Ranks Art: The Process

Posted by Jason on February 5th, 2007 — in Check this out dude, Design

We’ve hired Jeff Bent as the artist for Grey Ranks. Jeff is talented and reliable, and we’re thrilled to have him on board. Using a single artist will create a unified feel to the illustrations, which I think is pretty important for this material. It also allows us to build sequential illustrations that tell the story of the Uprising through four distinct kids. We’ve contracted for a full wrap cover and ten interior pieces. Here’s how it works.

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GR Character Sheet Idea

Posted by Jason on February 2nd, 2007 — in Design

Post-Dreamation I’m really wracking my brain about how to present at-table material for Grey Ranks. Everybody needs to have easy reference to everything – a list of NPCs, the current scene’s situation elements, the things everybody holds dear, and so forth.

Here’s a sample sheet that incorporates individual character information with group information, in this case a list of NPCs. NPC info, along with the character’s pseudonym, is inverted so that the rest of the group can reference it easily. I’m not sure if this is too busy and distracting, as opposed to just having loose sheets of paper laying around.