Fife of the Frostingale (Questiary Collab) (Patreon)

Greetings everyone!

We’re back this week with a rather unique item that we worked on with the lovely folks from Questiary! We wanted to pair an item to go along with one of their daily monsters and we ended up choosing the Frostingale, a bird that brings the winter winds with it. I heavily recommend you check out Questiary for daily monsters from a very talented crew.

Questiary is creating new, illustrated monsters for 5 every. single day. Patrons receive access to an easily searchable database of all monsters released so far, high resolution art, tokens, and more!

Questiary Patreon 

Our patrons get early access to all of these items as well as additional formats that are easily usable in both physical and online play. Additionally they get high-res art exports, easy to use text exports, behind the scenes updates, and a lot more.

If that strikes your fancy, consider becoming a Patron 

Design notes from Matthew:

When presented with the idea of a bird that summons the winds of winter with it, I was just absolutely in mind of some sort of musical instrument that could mimic its call and produce some similar effect.

There was an early discussion with whether we wanted this instrument to actually summon the bird, but it made a bit more sense to go with something that could mimic the effects a bit more. We didn’t want to get too far into summoning creatures with an item as that can always get a little awkward to balance.

We had a little talk about if we wanted the item to be bard only as it is a musical instrument and we came to the conclusion that it would allow us to play a bit more with Bardic Inspiration, which is always a fun way to give something special to a member of a group. It let us balance around a mechanic that’s already inherent to the class too so that was really appealing.

Finally, I decided to implement a new status effect called Frostbitten that allowed us to have a bit more of an interesting effect. Basically it allowed us to put a timer that could be combined with another hit to create a new status. I like this style of active status application from a support role and I hope to do more like it again in the future!

Illustration notes from Fernando:

My work is always changing and evolving, recently I decided to skip the “clean lines” stage of my illustrations and go straight from the rough sketch into painting.  It’s intimidating at first, especially for newer artists but I feel taking the plunge has paid off.  This is the second item I’ve done that way and the end result is a much more painterly/traditional looking product which is ultimately what I’ve been after.

We had a few iterations of this item, working with a large group means you’re going to have multiple opinions, in the end we all liked the ones that depicted the Frostringale itself, this meant that I had to work closely with the Questiary artist in order for our two versions of the bird to look similar.  Working with another illustrator was a new experience for us, and I would gladly do it again.

Feedback and constructive criticism is a two-way street, just like I gave them some feedback on their sketches they gave me some feedback on the final look of this item and I feel in the end both products are better off for it!

This was a really fun project for us working with Questiary. They’re an absolutely wonderful crew and I really enjoyed getting to interact with them. As we continue working into March, we’ll be bringing you an item next week that was requested by one of our Kollaborators. One benefit of that tier is the ability to suggest magic items to us that we can draw from to create. We’re very excited to get that into your hands!

We highly encourage you to join our Discord server where you’ll get access to exclusive channels that have sneak peeks, behind the scenes chatter, and more.

Rewards for Patrons!

Kraken's Kohorts ($3 tier)

Kraken's Kompanions ($6 tier)

Kraken's Kollaborators ($10 Tier)

Stay frosty!

- Fernando & Matthew