This is an animated film that was created as an introduction to a medieval fantasy, strategy based board-game that I mean to create. My main medium is Lino Print and my aim was to give this animation a raw and gritty feel often achieved with this way of working.
Transcript
- The Ashland.
- A scarred and desolate wasteland of charred trees and blackened stone.
- A broken place that holds memories of a battle waged long ago.
- this barren landscape was once teeming with life and prosperous civilisation
-Four cities occupied the four corners of the world.
-Vulkiria.
-Mortenhiem.
-Rustmount.
-Argenwald.
- These four cities co-existed in relative peace and tranquillity.
- Until one day...
- A curious twenty-sided stone fell at the feet of king Bertrum of Argenwald.
- The king took an instant liking to this peculiar trinket and took it as a sign that he was the right to rule.
- Before long each of the four rulers was presented with stones of their own.
- Day by day king Bertrum became more and more obsessed with the stone
- In the twilight hours it twisted his mind and body to its will.
- in time the rulers of the land forgot themselves.
- But what was left in their wake?
- Umbra the Perceptive, winged horror of the night.
- Memor the Patient, whose lidless eyes are always watching.
- Taurus the Enduring who’s might is unmatched...
- ...and Vermis the Quake-Bringer, a vile parasite of the deep.
- Still, the obsession grew, Umbra would not sleep until all the stones were his.
- Soon the dreaded sound of the ancient war horns echoed through the valleys of the land.
- the unsavoury sounds of battle extended to the highest reaches of the howling peaks.
- They're watching from above, a nameless figure looked out over a ruptured land.
- One with the power to change the tide.
- One by one each entity was sealed within the very stones they sought.
- Leaving the survivors to lick their wounds and begin to rebuild.
- One hundred years of silence pass.
- Strange figures begin the emerge from each of the four ruined cities
- Ominous towers begin to rise from the ashes.
- Four groups of necromancers, harnessing the power of the salvaged stones.
- The survivors of each respective faction hell-bent on releasing their former rulers.
- believing that harvesting the souls of the living is the key to breaking the spell.
- Using the stones to raise the fallen warriors from the dirt...
-To Fight once more.
- Even summoning Abyssal fiends to fetch the souls of the remaining opposing factions.
- with every consumed soul the power of the necromancers grow.
- In a world where life essence is the currency of the land, only the ruthless prevail.
- which faction will release their great and terrible archfiend and hold dominion over the Ashland?
- The board is set and the pieces in position, and so the real battle begins.