Rick Dimond's portfolio

Ruins of Avalon

NetEase, San Francisco
Position: Art director

Avalon is a game that never made it to ship. We put a ton of work into it - created tons of characters, and settings, and relationships... but in the end, they killed it.

It was intended to be a team brawler. Kind of like BattleRite, but based around a modified verison of the Arthurian legends.

Keep in mind, most of this is WIP - I am including it partially because I like it, and partially to talk about how it was visually set up.

(No, I don't have the art bible... but I can talk about the rules that were set.)

The Setting:

Ruins of Avalon takes place after the end of the traditional Arthurian legends - and yes, that means quite a few people have to come back from the dead.

It also incorporates and codifies some "supernatural" elements - namely Sidhe and Saints.

The underlying conflict involves who will take over the throne of Brittain, now that Camelot has fallen, and Arthur and his knights of the Round Table no longer rule.

Visual guidelines:

Like all Arthurian versions, Ruins of Avalon takes liberties with history and previous tellings in order to make things match up.

From a world perspective, it takes place right at the beginning of the 6th century. Most world events are from that time period, internationally.

However, the armor that the human knights wear is plate armor from the 14th century because... well, when people think "knights in shining armor" most people are thinking of plate. And its cool.

Sidhe armor, on the other hand, is from the 15th centry - more sophisticated, more ornate, more protective. Why? Because we wanted a subtle visual benchmark to seperate the groups. (Though most people won't know what the difference means.)

In order to roughly match the Arthurian tone (and not wander off into high fantasy) human women are generally wearing dresses, and not armor. (Except... for the nun.) To compensate for that, we made sure that we had lots of female Sidhe characters, ranging from armored knights, to "normal" clothes, to formal gowns. (And yes, that was an intentional choice.)

Factions:

Since it was intended to have some RvR elements, Avalon's characters have been seperated into three factions;

Arthur was revived by Merlin and the Queens, and leads a faction of his old knights, aided by the Seelie Court of the Sidhe.

Mordred (and many others) was revived by his aunt Morgana, and leads a faction of his knights, aided by the Unseelie Court of the Sidhe.

Lancelot, hearing of the renewed conflict, has emerged from the monestary and leads a faction of the christian Knights Meritus, aided by the Roman Church and its Saints.

Arthur Pendragon is old, and tired. His faction is mostly made up of the "old guard" - knights that grew up with Arthur, or have personal allegiance to him.

Likewise the Sidhe that ally with him are guardians and protectors, who have spent centuries guarding against ancient evils.

The faction tends towards warm earth tones - browns and oranges, occasionally pushing to yellows or reds.

The human knights tend towards plain armor and attire - very little decoration, instead favoring harnesses and cloaks.

The Sidhe tend to be richer, but still conservative. Oonaugh and Vivienne hit the high end of "dressy" female characters.

Arthur's sword "Excalibur" deliberately sits outside of our standards for quasi-realistic weapons. It is meant to be an otherworldly weapon, that stands out from everything around it.

Oh... and Drest is a Pict. Historians think they probably did paint themselves blue, and spike their hair with lime.

And Dagonet is insane. Actually insane.

Mordred's faction is ornate, wild, and fantastical. They mainly use cool colors - blues and greens.

Mordred himself is an arrogant, vicious bastard and all of his knights are the sons of kings, so they believe they have a right to rule. That is not to say they are evil - they honestly want to rule well, and believe they can do it better than Arthur.

The human knights dress they way the do, because they believe the people want glorious heroes to look up to - and that means you have to dress well.

Mordred's allies in the Unseelie Court believe that conflict builds strength, while peace weakens you and makes you vulnerable. Though not in direct conflict with the Seelie court, they have split off to follow their own path. They are wild and uncontrollable.

Lancelot's faction is based on crusaders. (Even though that will not happen for another 700 years...) All of the knights wear tabards with some varient of the cross, similar to the popular perception of the crusader knights.

Generosa and Miltiades wear varients of traditional cloths for nuns and bishops. (But with armor underneath. Dangerous times...)

The entire faction tends towards reds and whites - the most notable exception being Lancelot himself, who wears a monk's robe as part of his penance for his sins.

Instead of allying with the Sidhe - which the church considers diabolical - Lancelot's faction is aided by martyred saints. Like traditional saints, these martyrs show the gruesome manner in which they died for their faith.

All saints have the old-fashioned haloes, to show their holiness. Of all the humans, only Galahad is consider holy enough to have a halo.

(In order to avoid offending any of our christian players, the saints in Ruins of Avalon are not actual saints. They are fictional characters crafted from the same stories and groups as the real ones.)

Neutral Characters:

Of course, there are some characters that do not fall into a faction.

Guinevere takes on the role of our "quest-giver," as she is both attached and rejected by each of the factions.

For PvE elements, we also included the ancient Fomorians, and legendary monsters like the Cinbin... but honestly? There is WAY too much stuff on this page already, so I should stop.