RPG Hardcover & Boxed Set Video

The 2nd edition of the Mouse Guard RPG Hardcover Rulebook and the Boxed Set are now available through your local gaming and comic retailers (if they didn't stock a copy, they can still order one for you through Diamond).

To make it clear what is included in each of these products is and what is needed to play, I made a video to explain:

RPG Info from David Petersen on Vimeo.

Something I didn't go into in the video is what the differences are between 1st and 2nd edition. Luke Crane outlined these on the Burning Wheel Forum for the Mouse Guard RPG:

"We've been gently tweaking rules and reediting the book, both in the text and art. It's been my pleasure to have David involved at every step of the process.  [He]...sat with me as we recreated all of the patrols using the revised recruitment rules. It's been great to work so closely with him.

I tried to keep the changes to Mouse Guard is minimal as possible. I like Mouse Guard. It's light and open, while providing enough structure that the game moves along without too much effort. The main areas that changed:

Conflict: Thor & I simplified the individual team and multiple team rules. It's all very straight-forward now.

Wises: We gutted wises and ported over the systems from Torchbearer. This necessitated some minor changes to the Traits rules, too.

Recruitment: I rejiggered Recruitment to make it faster and to make the characters slightly more skilled to start, with a solid base of skills."

Cards: Weapon, Action, and Condition cards and their rules/clarity in the Boxed Set were also updated and significantly improved.

More 2nd Edition RPG Blogposts

Hardcover Rulebook Art Process

Boxed Set Cover Art Process

New Card Art 

RPG Promo Art Process Blogpost

2016 Appearance Dates coming soon.

Mouse Guard RPG Promo Process

My Italian publishers for the Mouse Guard RPG asked me to create an image to help promote the game being available there. And since the 2nd Edition recently was released here in the US (and the Boxed Set going up for sale soon), I decided to make a promotional image that would work here as well.

The Mouse Guard RPG is one of those most-asked about items from fans. I'm very proud of what Luke Crane created as a way for friends to get together, and share the duties of storyteller as they create their own adventures of mouse daring-do.

So, for today's blogpost, I'll go over how I created the artwork on the left, as well as a version with different text in English.

I knew I wanted the image to feature dice as a landscape. And since Mouse Guard has it's own special dice, I opted to use those. This pile of three gave me enough to have some surfaces for characters to be, but also feature all three unique sides and symbols. I positioned these a few different ways before coming up with this arrangement and taking a photo with my iPhone.




For the characters, I drew three. I'd planned to draw the three from the 2nd Edition cover of the RPG. But I decided to only draw two. Now I can't recall if I was thinking that drawing the grasshopper would give the piece some visual variety and improve it....or if I was just lazy and didn't feel like drawing the mouse with the sword.

These were all drawn on a sheet of copy paper.

Using the help of Photoshop, I put the drawn and photographed elements together. I also did a Google image search to find a decorative banner piece I could lay in (I manipulated the tails of it to fit my format). Doing this composite step allows me to make proportion and size changes to the drawings. I can quickly see if the mice should be bigger or smaller, or fix anything I drew out of proportion (It also allows me to only draw half of the bow and then mirror a duplicate on so it's symmetrical).




The Photoshopped composite is then printed out on copy paper and taped to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol. On my lightbox I can see through the  to the printout and ink on the bristol surface like the printed lines are my pencils. I used Copic Multiliners to ink with. And as you can see, I didn't ink the text in the banner, but separately, once in Italian and again in English.

Below you can see the final colored versions again. Please feel free to use them online to promote the Mouse Guard RPG (at your shop, for a local game you are running, or to show your local store how much you want the game)

2015 Appearances:

Art-Bubble Comics Festival: Copenhagen: Nov. 14-15

2016 Dates coming soon.

Hogwarts RPG Character illustrations

I've been playing a home-made Hogwarts RPG with some artist friends  at conventions after the con-floor closes. The system is a loose adaptation of some of Luke Crane's Burning Wheel mechanic of 6-sided dice rolled as pools. 1-2=failure dice, 3= 1/2 success dice, 4-5= successful dice, and a 6 is not only a success but can be rolled again to possibly add more successes. The Game Master sets an objective number for a task/obstacle/spell (ie: 3 successes) and based on their traits, their year level, house bonuses etc., the player rolls a certain amount of dice to try and achieve that objective. Most of the game isn't about rolling dice though, it's about solving puzzles, interacting with other players, unfolding a story, and meeting Non-Player Characters (NPCs).

An artist's favorite part of playing an RPG usually includes drawing the characters. And I'm no exception. So each session, I work on creating a visual for the players for at least one of the NPCs. For today's Blogpost (celebrating the date students should be departing Platform 9-3/4 and boarding the Hogwarts Express for the first day of school) I'm sharing the Character portraits for our adventure so-far.

Lukas Hadley: I'll start with my student NPC. Lukas is a Brave, Ambitious Mischivious 2nd year Gryffindor. While the other players start at 1st year, I created a 2nd year who would be able to reasonably show them the ropes or explain things to them in the game, but without being so advanced as to just be able to do difficult tasks for them. I made him a Gryffindor for two reasons. 1) I'm a Gryffindor and he's my representation in the game, and 2) Because they are in a different house, he won't always be there to help. Lukas had a pet toad named Olaf at the start of the adventure...but more on him later.

Theodore Thelonius Thadwick III: Theodore is Adam Withers' character (and this is his illustration of him). He's a short Compassionate, Clever, & Studious Ravenclaw first year. His family, who bully him a bit, are all Gryffindors, and he was relieved to be sorted into the house where "Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure." He has a pet pygmy owl he calls Captain Hootley and can often be found studying the daily prophet, books in the library, or his own notes to solve the mysteries of the adventure.

Symphony "Sparks" Chamberlain: Symphony is Comfort Love's character (and this is her illustration of her). Symphony is a first year tough, mischievous, leader who is not happy about being in Ravenclaw or even coming to Hogwarts at all. Her parents were supporters of you-know-who, and after his demise and their placement in Azkaban, she went to live with relatives just before coming to Hogwarts. She'd rather be with her Mom and Dad who she "knows" aren't evil. She's been in detention a few times, docked house points, and even summoned to the Headmaster's office for a talking-to. But, Symphony isn't giving up her idea that Hogwarts is a prison. 


Johnny Claire: Johnny is Jesse Glenn's character (and this is his illustration of him). He's a Mischivious, nimble, charming Ravenclaw first-year with a pet cat named Toblerone Bone. Johnny has purchased banned fireworks from Lukas, wandered the corridors at night, and burgled the Defense against the Dark Arts professor's office with Lukas taking a grey and wrinkled hand of glory. In the most recent session, Johhny found an old slip of parchment in his borrowed homework texts about a mirror on the 4th floor.

Jack Hume: Jack is Nate Pride's character (and this is his illustration of him). Nate started playing the game a few adventures in when Jesse couldn't join us. We explained the discrepancy with Jack being the patient zero of a Dragon Pox outbreak as soon as he arrived at Hogwarts. By the time Jack was getting well, the Jesse's character Johnny had contracted it and was in the hospital wing getting treatment. Jack is a compassionate, nimble, good-flying first year with a pet toad.

Gallus Draganov: Our game is taking place the first full school year after Harry's Parents are killed, when he is still a baby and Voldemort was "less than the meanest ghost". Snape has just arrived to teach this year, and so he is not the head of Slytherin House. I created Prof. Draganov to take that mantle. He is also the Defense Against the Dark Art Professor. The players have found that he is from somewhere in Eastern Europe that speaks with a vaguely Russian accent where he was an Auror (Dark Wizard Hunter). I wanted him to look cold and dapper. 

Silvanius Kettleburn: In this time period at Hogwarts, Hagrid did not yet teach Care of Magical Creatures. Up until Harry's third year it was taught by Professor Kettleburn (He retired to spend more time with his remaining limbs). There is some information about him through various Wikis and Pottermore, but I didn't find much of a description of him (other than the specifics of which limbs he is missing). So I blended Col. Mustard from Clue (1972 edition) and Warwick Roost from my Eleanor Oddbody pitch. Baby fire-crabs are crawling on his hat and shoulder to help illustrate his subject.

Baby Griffin: In the course of the adventure. A wounded baby griffin is found on the school's grounds. The players are trying to figure out what caused it's injuries and if it has any link to some muddy footprints that lead out from an upper window in the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor's office. What is known is that the griffin ate Lukas' pet toad Olaf. Lukas has no love lost for the beast, which is being co-cared for by Prof. Kettleburn and Hagrid. Theodore (Adam's character) has christened the Griffin "Feathersby"

Margot Pebblebrook: This 6th year is the female prefect for Ravenclaw and she's also the captain of their Quidditch team. She is tired of the players talking chances that would ruin Ravenclaw's chances of winning the House Cup. In one session, Nate Pride's character, who is good at flying talked to her about possibly seeing if the rules could be bent for him to play on the house team...but since I don't want to contradict the Potter books, no first year will have played on the house team before Harry for about a hundred years and Nate's character Jack has become the equipment manager (giving him access to that equipment, including school brooms). Note: I went with the book's coloring of blue & bronze for Ravenclaw instead of the movie's blue and white/silver

Aaron A. Aaronson & Kelvin Slydil: With a school full of young witches and wizards, the players need to have some other character names/personalities to bounce off of. These two were characters I didn't give any forethought, but invented in the moments students were needed in the adventure. They are a bit stereotypical in their archetypes. Aaron is inexperienced and excitable while Kelvin is aloof and snotty.




Filius Flitwick: The familiar and diminutive Charms Professor has shown up many times in the adventure so-far. Not just because he's one of the player's teachers, but because he's also the Ravenclaw head of house. I tried to blend together both movie versions of the character (He was played by Warwick Davis, but after the 2nd movie underwent a dramatic makeeover/re-design) along with my own ideas about Flitwick.

Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore: At the start of the adventure, after the players and their fellow arriving first years traveled across the lake and into the Great Hall for sorting and the start of term feast, it was Dumbledore who gave the exposition for the adventure with his notices and speech. He introduced the teachers and waxed on about how the wizarding world had much to celebrate and recover from with the death last year of Voldemort. And on one occasion, so far, a player has been sent to see the headmaster's office.

Minerva McGonagall: So-far in the adventure, McGonagall's role has been to sort the first years and a few interactions in Transfiguration class. However, I think she could become a move important NPC as the sessions go on since she is both deputy headmistress and also head of Lukas' house (and therefore the disciplinarian when he ends up in trouble). For my drawing, I tried to avoid the Maggie Smith look and was instead inspire by photos of Margaret Hamilton, the acress who played the Wicked Witch of the West (as well as Ms. Gulch) in the 1939 Wizard of Oz.



Severus Snape: Besides Potions classes, Snape's most prominent part of the adventure has been when he filled-in for an absent Professor Draganov in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Symphony (Comfort's character) didn't care for his lesson, and so she wrote out suggestions on how he could improve his teaching...and presented it to him the next day at a meal in the great hall. Dumbledore, in a timely fashion, interrupted and escorted Snape off for a nightcap before he could really let Symphony have it (though he did turn the note to smoldering ash in his fingertips).

Rubeus Hagrid: The most enjoyable NPC for me to play. Having listened to the audio books (both Fry and Dale) I mimic the voice as best as I can while using the character for a bit of humor or help to the players. He's been excited to watch over and care for the wounded baby gryphon. This was my 2nd take on drawing Hagrid for the adventures. I abandoned an earlier version about half-way in because the expression and overall hair shape was just not who I saw as the character.



Argus Filch: The crotchety, student-hating, and gnarled Hogwarts caretaker has popped up a few times in the adventure, mostly to catch the players out-of-bounds in the castle or roaming around at night. For my drawing of him, I used reference from the actor who played him in the movies: David Bradley. I couldn't really think of any visual way to improve on that actor's portrayal of Filch, so I went with it.



Pomona Sprout: As head of Hufflepuff House, she's had little to do so-far in the game (No players or NPCs are Hufflepuff students), but she has made an appearance in teaching the players lessons about magical plants like Dragon's Snare. Part of the trouble of roleplaying Hogwarts lessons, is that Rowling doesn't elaborate on what students learn in several classes at various years, so unless I have a specific need for play players to know about a spell or plant, we often gloss over those lessons. For my depiction of her, I wanted to shift away from the movie actress to a friendlier face like that of character actress Pert Kelton (Music Man).



Cuthbert Binns: His classes in the books are described as boring and dull, so we don't spend much time roleplaying out anything happening in his class...usually it something like "In the afternoon you move from class to class, in History of Magic Binns droned on about a conference of troll lawmakers and it was briefly made entertaining when an escaped turtle sporting a teapot for a shell came meandering into the room from a transfiguration class." I looked at Michael Palin for my depiction of Binns.

Xanthus Reynard: A business man in the publishing of magical books and tomes. He also collects rare books and, at times opens up his usually locked shop for used books and parchments in Hogsmeade called "Reynards Rare Tomes and Scrolls". The players have yet to meet this character (though he's been referenced...so if Adam, Nate, Comfort or Jesse are reading this, it's their first glimpse of him.

Ragnod: This goblin is hiding out on one of the small islands in the lake. The 1st year players saw a light flickering somewhere across the water when they crossed the lake in the boats with Hagrid on their first night at Hogwarts. After finding a magical way of summoning boats once used for the now-defunct house crew teams, the players discovered this crusty and salty diminutive goblin with a campsite working away on goblin-made craft-works...notably defying the Code of Wand use from 1691 by crafting & testing wands himself.


Death Eaters: As this is taking place the year after Voldemort & Harry's parents were killed, there are still Death Eaters on the loose. Sure, many of them have been sent to Azkaban, or are on trial, or in hiding from Aurors...but that's not to say that a few brazen ones couldn't don their hooded masks and cause some chaos. And a few have been brazen enough to test the school boundaries when not making a mess of Hogsmeade.

Oleg the Salamander: in the latest session, the players found it odd that Lukas had been sneaking around with fire, most recently in a lantern he'd tuck away between classes). They discovered that to replace his deceased toad Olaf, Lukas had pilfered a salamander used for third year Care of Magical creatures classes. Salamanders will only live as long as the fire they are born from continues to burn. So Lukas keeps his new pet alive by keeping the flame lit in the lantern.


Vidad Treepens: The wandmaker I made up back when I started making and selling wands is an anagram of my name "David Petersen". Vidad has yet to appear in the RPG, but I know that he has a shop in Hogsmeade, and with so much going on with Ragnod and his wandlore, I felt it would be good to have a true wandmaker available to the players. For the portrait, I just used my own face for reference, gave him a hat and apron like the ones Alistair wears in Legends of the Guard (my printmaking mouse proxy in Mouse Guard) and a bow tie that I often wear in honor of my grandfather.

!BONUS!

The 1st pencil version of Hagrid was my Art Drop Day piece for this year:

ArtDropDay 15 from David Petersen on Vimeo.

2015 Appearances:
Long Beach Comic Con: Sept. 12-13
Baltimore Comic Con Sept. 25-27
New York Comic Con Oct. 8-11
Art-Bubble Comics Festival: Copenhagen: Nov. 14-15

RPG 2nd Edition Card Art

The Second Edition of the Mouse Guard Role Playing Game will have new cards. In the original release, the cards were only a part of the boxed set and only in the boxed set supplement were the rules to implement the cards explained. For the Second Edition, Luke has included the rules in the Hardcover Rulebook, and decks of cards will be made available separately through Archaia (though they will also be included in a new release of the Boxed Set) For today's blogpost, I'll give a rundown of the types of cards and show the newly created art for each group. (Note this is only the art for the cards, other information, borers, rules, text, etc will adorn the final cards)

Action Cards:

In the Mouse Guard RPG, the characters and GM plan out their three actions for a round in a conflict secretly from one another and then revealed and resolved in order. The deck of cards allows each player (and the GM) to easily set face-down in front of them their action cards for each round and flip them over as they need to be revealed. The four types of actions are Feint (represented by Kenzie), Maneuver (represented by Sadie), Defend (represented by Rand), and Attack (represented by Saxon). Each card will contain rule details for how to handle each action type. And the Action cards in Mouse Guard aren't just for fighting, but can be used for any type of conflict in the game: a race to a goal, a public debate, even a cooking competition!

Weapon Cards:
In the Mouse Guard RPG, each weapon has rules associated with it that are more to do with how they act in use than just the amount of damage each inflicts. For players to keep track of those rules and swap weapons if they wish, they can use the cards and keep their weapon(s) in front of them for easy reference. For the new art, I tried to show a variety of styles of weapons where possible, but overall just make everything look cool and like it came from a Mouse Guard story you read (even if you haven't yet). The weapons cards consist of: Axe, Mace, Staff, Knife, Spear, Halberd, Bow & Arrows, Sword, Shield, Sling, and Hook & Line.


Luke also asked me to include for this release (something that was not in the original Boxed Set) artwork for new Armor Cards: Heavy and Light. Each have a bonus for using in terms of defense, but come with other downsides in terms of maneuverability and hiding. The heavy armor I based on a piece I drew as a commission that became the 2011 sketchbook cover, and the light is based on Jeremy Bastian's take on Midnight's armor from Fall 1152.

Condition Cards:
Instead of the traditional hit points as a way of marking the effects of damage and failures the Mouse Guard RPG puts conditions on your character which each have their own way of affecting your character and their own way to recover from them. The rules for each take up the majority of the card space, but for these instead of drawing 5 unhappy & unpleasant looking mice, I opted to design a unique border to stylize the card's condition type (each with a unique palate to help with distinguishing the cards from one another. Below you will find the art for Angry, Sick, Tired, Injured, and Hungry/Thirsty.

Luke, Archaia, and I do not have a firm date for the Mouse Guard RPG Second Edition, the Boxed set, or these cards, but the materials are being final-edited and proofed currently. We will update when we can....However....

Swords and Strongholds:

We are in the final two days of our  Kickstarter for the Mouse Guard board game Swords & Strongholds designed by Luke Crane & I. Now's the time to secure your copy: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/burningwheel/mouse-guard-swords-and-strongholds

2014 Appearances:

Boston Comic Con: August 8-10

Baltimore Comic Con: Sept. 5-7

NY Comic Con: Oct. 9-12

RPG 2nd Edition Boxed Set Artwork

With the 2nd Edition of the Mouse Guard RPG coming,  I created new art not only for the Hardcover Rulebook, but also for the new Boxed Set. This boxed set (like the last one) will contain the rulebook in softcover, a GM screen, Dice, Cards, Character Sheets, a map, and a supplement book.

For this week's blogpost I'm showing my process for creating the artwork for the 2nd Edition Boxed Set box.


I wanted this new art to catch up with the three mice show on the original boxed set artwork. Having them only watched by a predator as they do some non-fighting task seemed like a fun way to offset the new heat-of-battle themed hardcover art. I opted for the fan-favorite leaf-boat (below I describe more about the boat model I made and used for this piece) I sketched the different mice and the weasel separately in my sketchbook and then scanned them, tinted them, and reassembled them into this composite composition.

Because I needed a leaf boat that was more detailed than the one Sadie paddles in to Calogero (Fall 1152), I made a model. I found two leaf images online and printed them out, then mirrored them and did it again. I glued the mirrored leaves together so each were 2 paper layers thick and printed on both sides. Using little toothpick sized scraps of wood, I pinned together a leaf boat shape that looked plausible and aesthetically pleasing.

I inked the art on Strathmore 300 series bristol with Copic Multiliners (the 0.3 & 0.7 nibs) and a bit of ink and brush for the water. Inking on a light table I was able to use a printout of my digital composite above as a guide instead of re-penciling the piece on bristol. I left a lot of the water open for color and pushed the texture back to the background. Creating groupings of texture like this causes contrast which can help push the foreground away from the background.

I scanned the inked artwork and started flatting the shapes in with really awful colors. Other than using the original boxed set art as a color guide for the mice, I had no idea what my overall palate would be for this piece, but when flatting, you don't really need to know...you just establish that the fur is a different color than the cloak, which is different from the leaf boat, etc. I also created several color holds at this stage (areas where I want the inkwork to be a color instead of black) some of these were for details or water, but others were used to push the background and the foreground even further apart.

Here again is the final rendered colors for the piece.

Luke, Archaia, and I do not have a firm date for the Mouse Guard RPG Second Edition Boxed set, but the materials are being final-edited and proofed currently. We will update when we can.

Swords and Strongholds:

And a reminder that the Kickstarter for the Mouse Guard board game Swords & Strongholds designed by Luke Crane & I is still  going here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/burningwheel/mouse-guard-swords-and-strongholds

2014 Appearances:

Boston Comic Con: August 8-10

Baltimore Comic Con: Sept. 5-7

NY Comic Con: Oct. 9-12

RPG 2nd Edition Cover Art Process

 Luke Crane teased on his Burning Wheel Forum that one of the reasons we've been coy about a re-release for the Mouse Guard RPG (which has been out of print for a few years) is that we've been working on a SECOND EDITION of the game!!!

For this week's blogpost I'll be sharing my process for creating the cover art for the new Hardcover Rulebook (And in coming weeks, I'll share more of the new art for the game)

The original RPG cover featured a huge lineup of various mice (52 of them) to inspire the players with creating their own mice. For the 2nd Ed. I wanted to play up a bit more of the classic D&D covers with a group (a mouse patrol in this case) in a grueling battle with a dragon (or a snake here). The mice and snake were all sketched out separately and then assembled in Photoshop with a border I found online.

That composite piece was printed out (over the course of several sheets of copy paper, and then taped together) and placed behind a sheet of Strathmore 300 series Bristol on a light table. As I inked this piece (over 23" long) I tweeted pictures A, B, C. I focused on making sure the overall silhouette of each mouse read well in the overall chaos of snake scales and border design. I also took the time to ink that border by hand instead of using the digital border image I found so that I could hand weather it and give it flaws and character, also so that the original art looked complete.

The inks were scanned (in several parts and re-assembled) so I could begin flatting in color for this cover. I went with a reddish letterbox color to get the idea of this being about a fierce battle. The mouse fur and cloak colors are a variation on what seems to work in the comics: brown fur-red cloak, grey fur-blue cloak, red fur-green cloak.

For the final render I made a few color adjustments as I added shadows and highlights and textures with the dodge and burn tools. I added a color hold to the inked border design to make it blend with the red and make it seem more old-world.



Luke, Archaia, and I do not have a firm date for the Mouse Guard RPG Second Edition, but the materials are being final-edited and proofed currently. We will update when we can.

Swords and Strongholds:

And a reminder that the Kickstarter for the Mouse Guard board game Swords & Strongholds designed by Luke Crane & I is still  going here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/burningwheel/mouse-guard-swords-and-strongholds

2014 Appearances:

San Diego Comic Con: July 23-27

Boston Comic Con: August 8-10

Baltimore Comic Con: Sept. 5-7

NY Comic Con: Oct. 9-12