Take a look at Sol’Kesh, an upcoming Dungeons and Dragons bestiary book with artwork and minis that look like they belong in some alternate reality natural history museum. A Kickstarter went up last week for a book of monsters based on gaming art director Terry Maranda’s speculative evolution worldbuilding project.
In case you’re unfamiliar, those in the speculative evolution hobby literally play god with flora and fauna, using a splash of science and a healthy dollop of creative license to depict ‘realistic’ evolutionary scenarios. This can mean dreaming up ‘seed worlds’ where pigs or turtles are left to take over all ecological niches, or looking at what could happen on Earth years after humans are nothing but dust.
Sol’Kesh is an example of the latter. It’s a DnD setting based around an island 80 million years into Earth’s future, with flightless cave bats and dog-sized salamanders, coral reefs that colonize beaches, and squids that come onto land with them. And of course, since it’s made for tabletop RPGs, these creatures have statblocks to go alongside their clearly thought out ecologies.
Creator Terry Maranda has released many of the evolutionary-inspired DnD monsters as one-offs through DriveThruRPG, or MyMiniFactory, but now they’re using crowdfunding to turn
Sol’Kesh Into a proper product, releasing two books and 70 miniature STLs for 3D printing.
One of the texts is a DnD book with 70 fully-statted monsters, items to craft, and other gameable setting details, while the other is a journal that’s more about the lore and worldbuilding.
However, I have to say it’s the miniatures that really elevate the project to another level. With several different mini packs each themed around a particular biome, the Sol’Kesh minis have an unusual quality to them. They look like they’re designed not as game objects, as creatures to terrorize a party, but rather as an accurate depiction of a (imaginary) living thing.
Maranda’s video on the Kickstarter page explains the benefits of using speculative evolution for worldbuilding. “Instead of just janking in some monster that looks like it could kill anything on site, you end up creating a creature that has a part to play in the world.”
That doesn’t mean they’re not disturbing though – I would rather face a DnD Beholder than the tendrils of a Glomunder or the Tiama’s gaping mouth (even if it’s primarily designed to catch pond-skimming insects).
Launched on November 5, already the Kickstarter has hit many times its rather low funding goal of $1,070, raising $5,750 at time of writing. That’s not really reflective of the true amount drummed up, however, since backers are only being asked for a token amount to show interest, and will buy the products later.
What I’m not sure about is who you’re actually supposed to play in this RPG setting, since humans have gone extinct. Would the standard array of DnD classes and DnD races work on Sol’Kesh? Probably not!
Source: Wargamer
