Tor Gamings Relics New Faction Preview - The Ridend

 

In battle the Ridend Barons stalk the fields, directing the brave Ridendean warriors onward into the thick of the fighting. Each accompanied by two of their most loyal Men-at-arms, one bearing the Ridend Barons own personal Coat of Arms and the other acting as musician/signaller, each baron is an inspiring sight to behold. Such divine oaths of loyalty are commanded by the Ridend Barons that those who swear to serve them will not hesitate to march head on into certain doom if they should be ordered to do so.

*Taken from the Tor Gaming Site* Tor Gaming have been previewing some new faction concept art recently and have writen a little about how they got to their Goblin based faction.

Every faction in Relics is based on traditional fantasy armies. The Vaettir are Elves, the Britanans are Humans, Orcnar are Orcs and the Nuem are Dwarves. But when they embark on a new race they take a traditional fantasy race and completely twist it.

The twists are designed to draw inspiration from sources that are close to Gav Moorcroft's heart but also twists the reasoning behind the race existing. The traditional style (in general, not a rule of thumb) for Orcs to be the aggressors who are spreading war and suffering everywhere; the Humans are the race who are fighting against the darkness whilst the Elves are the mysterious race of noble pointy eared snobs. Dwarves, well they love their songs and honour are stripped away and changed so, these races are twisted into something that isn’t traditional for them.

In Relics, the Vaettir (Elves) are the ones to blame for the state of the world. The Nuem (dwarves) love pain and suffering. The Orcnar (Orcs) are the hard done by and the human are the aggressors.
But on top of that they look at ways to change their look to make them stand out. The Vaettir are elemental, no surprise there. But Gav takes a lot of inspiration from what he loves the most.

In my opinion I think you have to be blind not to spot where the inspirations for a lot of the Relics look and feel come from but just in case you haven’t figured it out yet alot of inspiration from the likes of Guillermo Del Toro, Tim Burton, Jim Henson, Brian Froud and to some extent Clive Barker.

History plays a big part and you can see this coming through in the Britanans (Georgian England) and the Ridend (Medieval Europe).

The major inspiration for the Ridend from two places only:

• Brian Froud and the Labyrinth film.
• Medieval Europe

It’s not hard to see the Froud inspiration, but the Ridend are not 100% inspired by his work. When Gav started working on the Ridend he wanted them to be medieval and wanted them to be honourable and pretty much ‘non-goblin’ like. So they got proper plate armour and no rag-tag look. He also ‘standardised’ the Ridend themselves with ‘beak’ noses and what not to have them feel more cohesive as a group. Add the posture of Frouds stuff and especially the goblin mounts in Labyrinth, but again slightly changed they now are more colourful and feathered…. WAR CHICKENS!!!!!

Christian Schwager has done a fantastic job on the concept art and I look forward to getting this faction to Relics (Its a great game)