Winged Horror visualized for BFRPG Sword and Board!

Based on the ever valuable opinions of the BFRPG forums and my friendly neighborhood game guild Legion of Myth, as well as my dedicated followers on Deviant Art, the background won!  Here you go folks.  I do have a Creative Commons License on this image, so use as you wish, just credit where its due and let me know if you put in any books or supplements that are going to be published on the web or in print (shoot me a printed copy and I might have to send a drawing...  that and if you are going to print it let me know so I can send you the massive 300 dpi .tiff file instead of this lo res 96 dpi .png).

24OCT12 Winged Horror drawing for BFRPG....

Is the background alright?

Or do you think it goes better without a background?

So, again slipping into my fun and games with the OGL Old School Renaissance that has been going on, and only growing incredibly, since 2008 I figured I'd offer my services as an artist to the Basic Fantasy and Microlite D20 crowd.  In this instance, its the Winged Horror from page 49 of the BFRPG "Sword and Board" rules supplement (which itself is a beautiful work from the BFRPG community).  My question here is which is better?  A background or none?  Would an inked background take away from the horror of this creature or add to it?

I'll give it some time before I ink the background and refine the drawing!  Hopefully some folks out there on Deviant Art, or the forums for the various OSR project, and finally here on Blogger give me some input...

Stars Without Number!

I cannot speak highly enough about the FREE version of Sine Nomine Publishing "Stars Without Number" available on DriveThru RPG http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=86467&src=SNP_SWN_ImageLink&affiliate_id=323031%20

Why?  Well, you take the very best aspects of a gold classic like Marc Miller's Traveller, and then mix in some D20 3.5 OGL rules into it, finally add some VERY SOLID Game Master materials, you get a game capable of being an instant classic.  However, Kevin Crawford and company went FURTHER and made a FREE version to get you hooked and playing hip deep from the get go.  You potentially NEVER need a supplement with a creative GM.  That is a feature that attracted me to Mongoose Traveller until I was reading through the Starship creation section and found the tonnage rather limited... Not the case with SWN, no limits there.  Starships are still a bit more abstract than in Mongoose Traveller...  While the Starship Combat is indeed a bit more abstract, its much stronger than some brand name games set in highly copyrighted and heavily licensed science fiction franchises by the very company that created the OGL and is trying to get fans to forget it existed (WOTC D20 Star Wars if you didn't catch my meaning there).

That, and having just moved into a new neighborhood without any of my normal stuff at my fingertips, having a .pdf with a great game to build a little corner of some galaxy for players to explore is really nice.  I recommend this rule set to any gamer who has to travel somewhere light and only can carry a device to read and a set of dice.