BLOODLUST - Pol - FINAL

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The final, finished, DONE version of the most detailed piece I have ever done. And I have now been authorized to tell what it is for: I have been hired to illustrate the English conversion of the French roleplaying game Bloodlust. There may not be many of you that know about this game, but to you I can only say that it is great.
“The death of an Empire is not very fun to live through… but it is very interesting to talk about…” Unknown Derigion philosopher, 1022.

Sixteen million abandoned souls in the greatest of all cities. The last jewel of an Empire that once stretched across the entire continent. Built upon the ruins of the now lost Elven civilisation, the city still holds many wonders, even after centuries of continuous raids from barbarian tribes.

At the centre of the city is the imposing palace. “Palace” is perhaps the wrong word; no human knows why or what this immense construction is, but since it is where the Emperors have lived, the word stuck. It is constructed of a magical white stone that seems to glow in the night and is virtually impervious to time and decay. Even dust seems to slip of it. And at the centre of the palace is the even more mysterious glass dome. So huge that its weight should have made it collapse on itself, or at least it should have been broken by the weight of the snow in the winter or the occasional meteorite. But it still stands, without a scratch, daring scientists to unlock its secrets.
Around the palace, on the sides of the mountain on which the city lies, are the Elven villas, now home to the richest and most powerful people in the Empire, with wonderful terraces from which the rest of the brutal world seem far away. Further down the mountain is the sprawl of 1200 years of human construction. House upon house (literally), crisscrossed by aqueducts, roads and bridges, many of the constructions are built by the stones that the less fortunate carve out from the foundation of the underlying buildings. Sometimes whole quarters collapse when the foundation becomes too weak. Further out, closer to the outer walls, are the poor quarters. These are the ones that are raided each year when the moons are right and the bloodlust comes up in the barbarian tribes of Tanæphis.
Sometimes the quarters too close to the outer wall are completely abandoned by city officials and are left to fend for themselves when attacked. These areas are home to only those who are able to defend themselves or those who are not welcomed elsewhere. Each year there appear more and more of these quarters, known by the inhabitants of Pol as “combat zones”.
And beneath it all, in the fantastic sewage system and the underground waterways constructed in ancient times by the Dwarves for the Elves, live those who are not even welcomed in the “combat zones”, or those who have become so accustomed to the danmk gloom that they can no longer stand the searing light of the twin suns.