Wizards of the Coast and Amazon have revealed a trailer for The Queen’s Cradle, the Dungeons and Dragons-themed episode of the upcoming Secret Level animation anthology. It’s a rapid montage of fantasy-themed mystery and action, but unfortunately the choice of a pseudo-realistic art style means we’re much more interested – and concerned by – the trailer’s deeply uncanny gnome wizard.
There’s precious little plot to be gleaned from the trailer for the DnD episode. A Dwarf, Gnome, and Orc from sundry DnD classes fight a horde of undead cavalry and a bat-riding liche on a bridge in front of some giant gates. The same Orc, a Goliath, and a human child meet a gold dragon in a dark cave.
You can watch the trailer on the DnD X account. While some people might wonder how these events are related, we’re stuck wondering: ‘Why doesn’t the Gnome have a neck? How is her face able to make that expression? How far into production were they when they realised the pseudo-photorealistic art style might have been a mistake?’
The ‘uncanny’, or ‘unheimlich’, was a term coined by Sigmund Freud to describe the disquieting sensation of encountering something that is human-like but not human, such as a puppet, waxwork, or corpse. In art, the ‘uncanny valley’ is the point at which something looks so much like a human that the ways in which it still isn’t human trigger our feeling of the uncanny, causing it to feel paradoxically less human than a simpler design.
The current forms of the DnD races were designed by fantasy artists to be visually distinct from humans, whether subtly or overtly. Render them using CGI that can draw individual hair strands, and you’re standing right at the mouth of the uncanny valley. And while you could create a fantasy animation where that sense of disquiet was the point, our strong suspicion is that it’s not the case for this licensed DnD story.
Secret Level will be available to watch on December 10 on Amazon Prime. Despite our concerns that the Gnome will step directly from this trailer and into our nightmares, we’re actually pretty stoked for the show, particularly the Space Marine 2 episode.
If you’re a DnD player, our guide to the DnD release schedule will keep you up to date with what’s coming next for the world’s first RPG. If you want to add some gnome-shaped atrocities to your game, check out our feature on the Worst Gnomes.
Source: Wargamer
