Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Behind the Design: Torog Planning for Underdark


Listening to a podcast (The Tome Show, I think), I heard them talking about the grotesque image of Torog in Underdark. I meant to find the sketch I did to get his look straight in my head, but can't find it! I did some of the work on Torog and his treasure palaces (uncredited, sadly), and I did find the brainstorming/planning notes I'd put down. See the larger image here.

Much of it's based on the plans Rob Heinsoo had made, and I was looking for ways to flesh out and refine those ideas and roughs. You'll see my brief notes for the torture palace sidebars (which became "torture dens," I think).

I went pretty nasty and gruesome with the images and descriptions of Torog. What good is the god of torture if he isn't scary? I think the editors justifiably toned it down for the final book.

If I do find the sketch, I'll put it up!

3 comments:

  1. The Torog stuff is one of the best things about the Underdark so far, I think. Lots of interesting flavor that transcends "Drow vs. Mindflayers!"

    Plus, the "King the Crawls" is really just an awesome idea for a god. Glad you took him beyond just being a god of troglodytes or something.

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  2. I'm up and down on Torog. He's a really cool idea with some great images that just doesn't happen to fit into my setting. But the image in the book of him is the nastiest thing WotC has ever published, I'm convinced. That's what I said in the podcast anyway (and thanks for the mention, url for anyone interested is www.thetomeshow.com).

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  3. this idea of Torog is much impressive, th eIdea of God of torture is awesome and must look scary...

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