My approach to detailing the alien threats and adversaries of Razed was inspired by Ken Hite’s multifaceted approach to the Mythos in Trail of Cthulhu. Each style of enemy is not a single vision of alien menace but a category of force containing a variety of different interpretations of a core idea. Some of those categories are broader than others.
On the page, each enemy force exists as evocative words and myriad options. In the art for Razed, I wanted to put the central ideas behind each force into the hands of a few artists and let them do concept art that built on and expanded those ideas visually, adding dimension to them and increasing the number of options available for Razed GMs and players to use when rendering these monsters in their minds. Part of Razed involves investigating the source and cause of the apocalypse so that you can survive—or fight it.
If we had one single truth to what this or that enemy force wanted or was like inside its armor, you could just read the book and have those answers spoiled for you. Instead, I wanted each instance, each campaign of the game to involve different answers to core questions, so that players knew sort of where they were headed but not what awaited them when they got there.
It’s like how, in some fantasy campaigns, you know there might be orcs and dragons and trolls, but you don’t know quite what they’re like in this campaign. Razed facilitates that by offering immediate and tangible solutions that GMs can use directly, sow as rumors, or use as inspiration for their campaign’s and mystery’s own truths.
What you have here an artist’s vision of the alien force called the Crusaders, as brought to scary, wonderful life by Steven Sanders. What is this thing? Is it biomechanoid or somehow undead? Does it want to kill us or convert us? Is this particular model here to communicate, study, or destroy? Do you hear the buzz and the tiny pops as its hover drive carries it through the smoke and humidity in the air or does it blink in and out of sight as it glides silently through the ruins of your hometown? Whose blood is that on its sturdy shell?
With Sanders’ artwork in my mind, I go back to the text for the Crusaders to add in options and dimensions for them that didn’t occur to me in prose alone. The text influences the art influences the text… and it all leads back to you, the players, who take our concepts and render them in your minds’ eyes through play.
