DavesGaming

Our expedition was to learn the fate Amnish Captain Bryam Lancameth. His widow has wanted an answer for many years. The ancient Dwarven Kingdom in the Troll Hills has been over run by, wait for it, trolls. And other things. We will see what can be found.

Eh, goblins are rarely that smart.

The red wizard was the first of several we met. They were doing experiments and cross-breeding trolls. We faced a bewildering variety of types (sub-types? Cross breeds? Whatever). They can conveniently be classified now as “ex-trolls”.

We explored deeply into the ancient Dwarven kingdom. Apart from the many trolls we faced orcs and giants.

They all begged for us to find the traitor who had led them all to their end. And as we went deeper we began encountering dwarves. Those dark and twisted magic-using Derro Dwarves.

Defeating him brought peace to those we had sought, although Lancameth himself had been infected with a sort of undeath. With the help of the Church of Helm we were able to bring peace for him too.

Since we were back in town, it was time to check out our friend Bodhi’s old stomping ground.

Imoen reported she felt whole and at peace after we slew Bodhi.

*****

This was done entirely with the new SeeDream 4.5. Mostly an excellent renderer with a few quirks.
I started by doing new “photo-realistic” renders with SeeDream of all the characters on my team. My first attempt at putting them in one portrait showed them all looking way too much alike. It was consistent on the *details* I mentioned, but the basic facial model seemed to be the same on all of them. So I reconsidered, and did new generic character renders with both DALLE and MAI-Image. This got a little more variety in characters and facial types. This helped, although I still find when you mash them all together with SeeDream it forces some conformity. Looking at the portraits I posted, well let’s just say Gabby and Imoen sure look like sisters! And Skie may be a cousin! Aerie has a slightly different face.
It also wanted to give Keldorn and Bull the same facial hair. I found I could differentiate by specifying “the bald one”. Funny.
Then, my bad, the first portrait, “heading out” has Keldorn wearing the new Mithral Plate he got on the quest. Oops.

I think I’ll still have plenty of use for the Co-Pilot renderers. For one, I’ve scaled back on points at OpenArt since my Chuck and Sarah run. And now I’m using it when I do video renders. SeeDream is also slightly more expensive than the other renderers. So it will have a place, but it will not be exclusive in the future as it is in this update.