Beyond the Western Deep

That sandstorm is blocking their path and a familiar sight cuts through the skies. Ravens, hm? Where have we seen them before, I wonder?

We’ve definitely seen them before!

In any case, regardless of ravens, the Waystations of the Desert of Zin are intended to serve as places of rest and respite for travelers and traders alike. Think of them like YE OLDE TRUCK STOPS along the highways and byways of the desert. These places have a fun history and culture all their own, accommodating folks from all across the mercantile spectrum, be they legitimate traders just trying to get through the desert alive, or seasoned criminals scoping out a new score (Beck, Rook, everyone is looking at you).

Speaking of new scores, we’re really happy to announce a brand new piece of limited edition Western Deep merchandise that will be making its debut at Emerald City Comic Con this December: Wintersdawn in the Deep NES Cartridges!

As with the limited edition 3.5″ game floppies we had at Rose City Comic Con (and will have available at Emerald City as well) these cartridges are blank, but feature a URL on the front cover that leads you to our itch.io game page, where you can download the game at your leisure.

While the floppy disk version of the game uses Jerome Jacinto’s incredible cover illustration, evoking the classic PC adventure games of old, Wintersdawn artist Neil Schultz and I opted for a different approach with the NES cartridges, evoking instead the classic “black label” look of early-generation Nintendo Entertainment System games. Even going so far as to create a more decidedly “Western Deep” take on Nintendo’s classic “Adventure Series” logo, which initially appeared on box art for games like Metroid.

These titles used in-game assets to show prospective customers exactly what the game looked like, proving at the time just how powerful the system was (goodness how far we’ve come)!

For guest art this week, here’s a wonderful piece from reader Jeremy R of a canid stronghold! Check it out:

As some of you might have seen, we posted some artwork pulled from the bonuses section of Volume 2 on our Twitter account a little while ago that featured a look at ermehn castles from their “golden age” (check out our Twitter account for the most up-to-date Western Deep info at https://twitter.com/TheWesternDeep) and Jeremy was inspired to take a crack at what another canid stronghold might look like.

Thank you so much for sending this wonderful artwork our way, Jeremy! We love the attention to detail, from the elaborate stonework to the canid flags flying high over the fortress, this stronghold looks like it would fit right in alongside Deltrada Garrison!

In any of our readers have artwork they’d like to share with us and the rest of the Western Deep community, feel free to tweet it at us @TheWesternDeep on Twitter, or emailing it to us at hello(at)westerndeep.net! We’d love to see your work!

Have a great weekend, and HAPPY OCTOBER!