Headsman's Hood (Patreon)

Greetings adventurers!

We found a broken man in an alley washing his sorrows away with a bottle. Not one to shy away from an interesting interaction, we stopped to speak with the man and learn of his troubles. Well it turns out he was the town’s headsman and after years of doing his due diligence, it had taken its toll on the man behind the mask. He swore in that moment that he wouldn’t take another life, handing over his hood and stumbling off into the darkness. We hope he found peace, but we found an interesting piece of magic. May it lay easier on your soul than it did on his.

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Design notes from Matthew:

This hood was actually one of the quickest concepts I’ve had come together in awhile for one of our items. My process from starting to finishing writing was amazingly short on this one, mostly because I had a great idea on the theming from it from the start. I knew that I wanted the item to be three-fold. I needed it to hide an identity, help finish off enemies, and offer a unique death effect to really hammer home the point of an executioner’s hood.

The identity mechanic is something that I’ve wanted to include for our roguish friends that really don’t want to be identified in any way. This mechanic of giving an almost unrecognizable face came together really naturally. We already have mechanics for deceiving people, so just give a boon to that and let it run. Also I love giving social mechanics along with combat mechanics.

For the other bonuses, I like the idea of an item that is conditionally powerful. Having it do more damage against creatures that are closer to death can incentivize interesting strategic decisions like going later in a round. Finally, the beheading mechanic, well that’s just a fun way to make sure something stays dead if you want it to. Also, a great zombie deterrent.

Illustration notes from Fernando:

Another tricky item to illustrate, executioner hoods are iconic, but they are also kind of bland and simplistic in their design but that’s also the type of challenge I love to tackle with AbyssalBrews.  My first stop, as it often is, was Pinterest and there was a particular hood there that was very inspiring to me, mainly because it had a more molded shape, like Batman’s cowl.

Something else that made this illustration “click” in my head was the positioning of the item, making it seem like it’s facing left but the head is twisted to the right, looking directly at us gives it a creepy, sentient vibe.  Lastly, I always meant to make it as if it was ragged and tattered, but it wasn’t until I started sketching it that it occurred to me I could make the tattered cloth look like fangs and teeth around the mouth which added to the creepiness factor.

I’m very pleased with the end result, we thought about adding a bit of glow/mist coming out of it but ultimately I think it made it look TOO sentient, the hollow eyes I think gives it a much creepier vibe.

This one felt extremely thematic to me. Fernando absolutely crushed the illustration process on this one and it made the theming all the easier to implement. Making a hood into something interesting can take a bit of work, but the way he was able to weave some characterization into the hood was just phenomenal. I’m proud of this spooky release!

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Heads up,

- Fernando & Matthew