The Ethurna Setting Guide utilized modern simplicity to breath a unique look into a decades old genre. This project was meant to push the bounds of a genre often utilizing a strict layout and design style. Over 300 pages showcasing a unique visual language born of dedication to giving this book its own identity. It challenged my the known standard of TTRPG layout at the time, allowing me to try something new. It was important to me throughout the process to create a setting guide that stood out from existing volumes like the Player's Handbooks of big name RPGs. I did so by focusing on a modern aesthetic, keeping everything to black and white and utilizing splash pages.
The world of TTRPGs is filled with dramatic heraldry and icons of gods that are meant to invoke a sense of power and awe. So how do you do that with a modernist's approach to design? For the project, we utilized simple shapes that drew on the idea of 'sacred geometry'. This gave us a nearly unlimited pool of ideas to pull from and let the ideas shine through.
For my own part, I used these to bring through complex ideas with very little space to do so. How do you show the idea of loss with only a few squares? How do you invoke the idea of pain with one line? These are the kinds of questions that needed to be asked and answered in this project.
The success of this project is tracked by the use case of the players. Even if we as designers think that everything speaks for itself, the players and users are the ones who prove whether this was successful or not.
In the case of Ethurna, the book found great success with the players who reference it and the games it is used in. The book has been used now for several multi-year campaigns. The players who have used it have found the imagery to be memorable and easy to recognize within the games themselves. For my part, I consider that a fantastic success.
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