Most Recent: Akh in the Shell (Khoursara)
Akh in the Shell is a modular set of rules for integrating the Egyptian Afterlife into your D&D 5e / PF2e game, with optional rules for a Ghost in the Shell inspired science/fantasy holographic technological twist. I wrote, designed, and illustrated the whole thing, with some help from my partner. This is the first section we are crowdfunding for our D&D setting book, Khoursara, City of Seven. Akh in the Shell acts as the first section, which focuses on the scifi-fantasy elements of the world setting.
Inside, there are new playable ancestries for your D&D 5e / PF2e game: Khenes Neb Ankh (mechanical sarcophagus constructs possessed by digital souls), Holograms (digital souls), evolving constructs (khenti), and more playable ancestries inspired by Egyptian gods.
A new starter adventure awaits across the great deshrets of Hakibad and beyond! Escort the Pharaoh’s mysterious Chief Lector Priest across deserts of red, gold, and black, towards the megalopolis city of Khoursara where civil conflict among the Noble houses is about to break out.
Within the Sentinels are derelict divine machines upholding the very code base of the Afterlife itself from the outside. These mechanical monitors perform a range of tasks, from basic terminal operation to vital soul-weighing ceremonies of the recently deceased for the continuation of the digitizing Afterlife.
Anpu Checksum, Canopic Guardians, Ibis Monitors, and more feature in this book as fearsome mechanical / holographic creatures for your party of heroes to take on in the Digital Duat!
Khoursara: The City of Seven Sentinels
Each section of the Khoursara book (like Akh in the Shell) will exist as standalone pieces that you can get each on their own in PDF format, and eventually they will be combined into a full setting book (see below)!
Using Kickstarter, I want to publish a D&D TTRPG setting book that allows players to interact with the high-fantasy dieselpunk megacity I’ve written, inspired by ancient Egyptian mythology and Halo / Ghost in the Shell imagery. The writing and game design derive from the art history courses taken over the length of my college career, which influenced me to read even more on cultural inspirations for game mechanics. I wanted to blend the pantheon, afterlife, and cultural traditions of the Predynastic, Old, and New Kingdoms of ancient Egypt with present-day Egyptian-Arabic speaking Cairo. I applied this not only to the setting and story of the world, but in the design of the book’s layout as well, such as in this style guide that informed the rest of the project.
A city within the world of Infinis Ajer, Khoursara, the City of Seven Sentinels is one of the oldest cycling cities in the world. The “Sentinels” are towering spires that climb into the heavens surrounding the city’s walls. The megalopolis city is made up of numerous districts, each the size of New York city. As of 908 KDS (Kynd Set Date), Pharaoh Pyrrhic Adaephonus rules over Khoursara, and his 7 Nobles and their houses oversee aspects of day to day life.
Inside the city of Khoursara, you can play / meet many different ancestries and creatures, all of which are meant to reflect the Egypt-inspired animal-headed gods. A core part of the book will focus on these new ancestries, with numerous suitably divine thematic feats for each, influenced by the Gods of the setting itself.
For instance, Half-devourers are crocodile and hippo-headed humanoids that trace themselves back to the Goddess, Sekh-maw the Great Devourer. They’re able to rend the Ka (the aspect of the soul that makes us alive) from the body of those judged as unworthy. Hairless sphynx cat Mirankh embody a Goddess who was split into two parts, her eyes of truth and her body of knowledge – Miram and Kita. They tattoo their life stories onto themselves, carrying on and becoming empowered by their family’s traditions and tales. There are many more playable ancestries planned for the full book, such as jackal-headed Jackhasans, snake-headed Oserpenti, and more. I commissioned Mingi Webber (@Sinner_Minner) to help me with the Half-devourer and Jackhasan art, making the rest of the book’s art myself.
An additional 50 items, illustrated by Mingi Webber (who also drew some monsters and ancestries), will also be included, which you’ll be able to get on cards with their mechanics I designed on the flip side as an optional add-on.
Additional rules in the book will include The Duat (or Afterlife) which will function like a New Game+ that you’d see in video games, where when one dies, preparations made for the afterlife will impact the kind of game you can play in the world afterwards. Optional rulesets lean into the Halo and Ghost in the Shell inspirations more, in that The Duat is becoming digitized, and as such, those who pass into the afterlife have their soul / Akh (and other parts of the perceived Egpyptian soul that make up it) corrupted, distorted, and lost.
This means players can opt to become holographic in nature (with the Hologram archetype), or upload their consciousness into a shell, like with the new Khenti ancestry (shown below with the Shabti heritage).
Other mechanics will include a new class – the Farseer, new monsters, new archetypes (such as the aforementioned Hologram), new Cleric / Champion Gods and faiths, and numerous items, all themed around Egyptian mythology and art history.
Part of the design thesis was establishing a style guide and laying the groundwork for what the project was aiming for. Another part of my ethos was integrating the thematic component of cycles into the title of the setting itself symbolic of the fused past and present.
You can find the 50-page demo of the later full 200+ page book here, and scan the QR code below or click here to enter your email to be notified for when the full Kickstarter comes out!
When Zagan Falls – A Mythic Bastionland Realm
This Mythic Bastionland setting supplement features a homebrew campaign setting I played with my friends with art history inspiration, as well as games like Dark Souls, Elden Ring, Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! and shows like Record of Lodoss War! I didn’t have much time to put it together in time for the Jam, so it will be an ongoing project. I plan to add more layout, editing, and art too! It was a blast to illustrate, design, and write a module for such an inspiring system! For use with the incredible Mythic Bastionland by Chris McDowall!
For the full thing, take a look at it on itch.io, where I submitted it for a fan content contest.
Arcus Zagan II was the Emperor of the Holy Zaganite Empire. When he falls in battle, so too will his kingdom. His last effort as Emperor was to launch three mighty arrows in different directions. Where each Flèche (arrow) landed, a hold blossomed. And so, every few years, one of the three holds – The Three Seats of Flèche – compete to become the Seat of Power, with Zagan’s acolytes relaying their choice from the weakened king up on his mountaintop castle.
The goal is to add more unique mechanics to places you can go, like the treacherous ever-cloudy mountains of Karkanosze, which has unique rolls you make for each fog tile you cross through, or the Fogfen, which you adapt to once you meet a seer. The main content right now is the Realm map (pre-labeled and un-labeled!) the mountains and stronghold of the Emperor Zagan, which includes a site map for his fortress – the Flèche Nock. There are seeds of adventure included, as well as interactions between where some of the landmarks are placed, and the Myths I randomly rolled from the base Mythic Bastionland book and re-written in context to the Realm. Of course, the integration is open-ended enough for you to re-use the map for any myths to see how they interact with the setting itself! This will be an ongoing project that I intend to add more stats/ art / design to / edit and test as time permits.
Pureblood TTRPG
Most recently, I’ve been illustrating for the upcoming post-apocalyptic TTRPG, Pureblood. This kind of work mostly involves character and monster illustration, ranging from human survivor player character classes to zombies and demons, all within a desert punk world.
These were very fun to work on, and the progress will continue as the game nears completion!
Previous Work – The Sentry Student Newspaper
Recently (2020 – 2024), I was an Writer, Copy Editor, and Illustrator for The Sentry student newspaper at CU Denver. It was a rewarding experience, going from contractual work with articles and illustrations here or there, all the way up to editing the copy directly alongside the other head section editors.
Here’s an example of my illustration work on the front cover, and my other illustrations:
A collection of my illustrations from over the years.
Older Work – Webcomic: HYPNOGOGIA
These pieces are all apart of a current project of mine: A webcomic titled Hypnogogia, which is written, drawn, and conceptualized by me. The setting of the science fiction story is an alternate reality to our own, on a planet called Hiraeth. With a world so connected and progressive, such technology easily fell into the wrong hands – setting the stage for a society ruled by force-fed simulated dreams.
2 + 2 = 5 is another part of the story, acting as a poster and landscape of one of the locations within the story.
The Narrative is another element of the world of my story is a magical book which crashed down on Hiraeth in ancient times. This book explained a key element of how the universe worked, leading to rapid progression for humanity in this timeline. This book, seemingly coming from space itself, was dubbed simply as “The Narrative,” and is said to grant its user both the knowledge and ability to alter the fabric of reality itself: a reality which they realize was made up entirely of microscopic butterflies. I created a physical version of The Narrative for an IB (International Baccalaureate) Art project, along with many other pieces detailed below that feature characters from the story.
Various character designs for Hypnogogia, including the protagonists (Switchboss and Mercyboss), and some of their adversaries (The Abyssal and Meraki).
Ambo-Membrum Inferius Schematic was an IB Art project intended to begin introducing one of the main characters, Mercyboss into the art surrounding my story. Using the idea of medical blueprints for prosthetic limbs, I wanted to create story ques to lead any keen-eyed readers further with characters in the story, as well as continue the tone of cyber-retro-futuristic punk design. The overall ideas for pieces such as these are to be singular pieces of information that give few clues and keep viewers guessing and drawing more information as they find more artifacts like this blueprint for what is happening.
Whispers of the Crystalline Desert was a digital painting for another location in the world of Hiraeth. It represents a landscape both in my story’s setting, and a character’s mind, that being TRQ (The Robobot Queen). The idea is that a character, represents the creative side of the split brain theory, and the landscape of the Crystalline Desert where she wanders in the present time of the story. She literally sees the world in dreamlike moments, unsure of reality, dancing in the desert. I drew the piece using PaintTool SAI2 and finally adjusting my overall colors to the triad color scheme to meet my vision of the bizarrely geometric and surreal desert concept.
