Blade Bind Designs, Part 3

Well I still haven't managed to play another session of Blade Bind, although there's an online game scheduled this Sunday. In the meantime it's becoming increasingly difficult for me to resist starting the layout, but I'm trying really hard to keep the manuscript in one place for updates and so I don't need to repeat layout work. At the moment there isn't a lot in the manuscript that's completely finalised, but I feel like I just need to run it through one or two more tests (preferably at least one face-to-face) before I can move forward with confidence.

In the meantime I'm doing more graphics work. I should probably make a start on an iconic action-oriented illustration to grab people's attention, but I'm currently making good progress on finishing up the initial thirteen Blade designs. Here's the next set of three:

Claíomh Solais is inspired by the legendary Celtic blade. I wanted to make the metal look old and battle-scarred, but the "fuller" in the blade is actually a sort of trans-dimensional space that glows with bright sunlight (the glow-effect is a little more obvious when it's not on a white background).

Devil Wing is the antithesis of Michael the angel feather Blade. It's currently the most organic Blade, perhaps even looking like it might fly off by itself if you don't keep a good hold on the twisted-sinew grip!

Buluc Chabtan is named after the Mayan god of war, violence, and sacrifices. It's in the form of a macuahuitl, a mesoamerican sword made by setting pieces of sharpened obsidian (which these days gets used to make surgical scalpels) into a wooden shaft. I used to think that the obsidian would get knocked out in combat, but apparently the resin they used was strong enough that it wasn't an issue.

Did I mention that all the Blades are massive "buster sword" things? It's easy to lose that sense of scale when they're presented without something to compare them against. They're roughly six or seven feet long. The mystical contract each Blade makes with its Chosen gives its wielder the ability to heft it as though it were a regular-sized sword. Anyone else who tries to pick one up is going to need a lot of strength, assuming it will even let them in the first place. Or perhaps, when someone tries to pick up a discarded Blade in anger, it will simply offer them the bargain of power...