REAL PEOPLE FOR REAL-WORLD TROUBLE

Not every game needs dragons, starships or tentacular horrors from beyond space and time.

Sometimes you need a corrupt private investigator.

A sinister businessman.

A frightened witness.

A biker, a sheriff, a survivor or an alarmingly intense man glimpsed through a snowy window.

Brad McDevitt Stock Art – Modern Collection 5 provides 25 distinct black-and-white illustrations in TIFF format for publishers, writers, game designers and Games Masters who need contemporary characters without commissioning every image separately.

The collection is particularly useful for modern role-playing games, crime, espionage, conspiracy, investigation, action, horror and any setting in which apparently ordinary people are making extremely poor decisions.

The artwork may be used in personal and professional projects, subject to the terms of the attached licence.

INSIDE THE COLLECTION

The 25 supplied illustrations depict:

• Biker Chick

• Corrupt Private Investigator

• Country Bumpkins

• Guy Shooting Sideways

• Innocent Girl

• Old Couple

• Police Interrogation

• Rednecks

• Scary Suit Guy

• Sinister Business Guy

• Survivor

• Beauty

• New Age Guru

• Female Police Detective

• Girl at a Snowy Window

• Yakuza

• Headshot 1

• Headshot 2

• Headshot 3

• Headshot 4

• Investigator 1

• Investigator 2

• Investigator 3

• Sheriff

• Sinister Man

That gives you investigators, criminals, witnesses, authority figures, civilians, eccentrics and several people whose alibis deserve closer examination.

CRIME AND INVESTIGATION

The collection contains plenty of useful material for crime, mystery and investigative role-playing.

The Corrupt Private Investigator, Female Police Detective, three Investigators, Sheriff and Police Interrogation scene can support:

• Murder mysteries

• Police procedurals

• Noir investigations

• Private-eye campaigns

• Espionage

• Organised crime

• Conspiracy thrillers

• Modern horror

• Missing-person cases

• Games involving people who insist upon speaking only after consulting their solicitor

The investigators can become player characters, recurring allies, professional rivals or officials attempting to determine why the same group of heavily armed civilians appears at every supernatural crime scene.

The interrogation image can introduce a suspect, reveal a clue or illustrate the precise moment when somebody’s carefully prepared story begins to disintegrate.

Every mystery needs suspects.

This collection provides several people who already look uncomfortable under questioning.

CRIMINALS, THUGS AND SINISTER MEN

Modern villains do not always wear uniforms or stand beneath signs reading SECRET HEADQUARTERS.

Some wear suits.

Some ride motorbikes.

Some occupy respectable offices and employ other people to do the shouting.

The Yakuza, Scary Suit Guy, Sinister Business Guy, Sinister Man, Biker Chick and assorted hard-looking headshots can represent:

• Organised criminals

• Corporate villains

• Gang leaders

• Professional killers

• Political fixers

• Intelligence operatives

• Corrupt officials

• Security contractors

• People offering highly paid work with suspiciously few details

The Sinister Business Guy may be a ruthless executive, criminal financier or perfectly legitimate entrepreneur who merely happens to own several windowless warehouses.

The Yakuza figure can become an underworld lieutenant, traditionalist enforcer or formidable contact within an organised-crime campaign.

The Biker Chick might be a gang member, courier, mercenary or entirely innocent traveller who is becoming increasingly tired of everyone making assumptions.

A useful stock illustration does not dictate the character.

It gives you somewhere interesting to begin.

WITNESSES, VICTIMS AND ORDINARY PEOPLE

Adventures require more than heroes and villains.

They need people caught between them.

The Innocent Girl, Old Couple, Beauty, Survivor, Country Bumpkins, Girl at a Snowy Window and other civilian figures can become:

• Witnesses

• Victims

• Relatives of missing people

• Informants

• Bystanders

• Clients

• Suspects

• Survivors of earlier events

• Ordinary people who know rather more than they initially admit

The Innocent Girl might genuinely need protection—or have become extremely skilled at appearing harmless.

The Old Couple may be witnesses, neighbours or the only people who remember what happened in the house thirty years ago.

The Survivor can carry the scars of an accident, attack, disaster or supernatural encounter.

The Girl at the Snowy Window might be isolated, watched or quietly observing something outside that nobody else can see.

A campaign world becomes more convincing when its population consists of more than professional adventurers and disposable attackers.

Sometimes the frightened witness becomes the most important person in the story.

Sometimes the harmless old couple are responsible for everything.

ECCENTRICS AND QUESTIONABLE EXPERTS

The New Age Guru provides a ready-made figure for modern occult, conspiracy, satire and paranormal gaming.

He might be:

• A harmless eccentric

• A fraudulent spiritual leader

• A genuine psychic with terrible presentation

• The founder of a dangerous cult

• An occult researcher

• A media personality

• A conspiracy theorist who has accidentally discovered the truth

• Someone selling enlightenment through a twelve-part subscription programme

Modern campaigns often need experts whose reliability remains uncertain.

The guru may possess exactly the information the characters need.

Unfortunately, extracting it may require attending a retreat, purchasing several books and listening to a long explanation involving vibrations.

HEADSHOTS AND FLEXIBLE CHARACTERS

The four numbered Headshots provide adaptable character portraits without overly specific narrative roles.

They can be used for:

• Suspects

• Informants

• Criminals

• Government officials

• Witnesses

• Supporting characters

• Player-character portraits

• Security personnel

• Faces in case files

• People introduced five minutes before something terrible happens to them

Their flexibility makes them particularly useful for Games Masters who need an image for a character created during play.

The players will inevitably become obsessed with somebody who originally existed only to provide directions.

Give that person a face.

Pretend they were important all along.

MODERN ACTION AND ESPIONAGE

Several pieces can support action-heavy modern games involving agents, criminals, vigilantes and people holding firearms in ways unlikely to appear in approved training manuals.

Guy Shooting Sideways offers an immediate image for:

• Gunfights

• Criminal encounters

• Action thrillers

• Urban combat

• Bodyguards

• Assassins

• Gang warfare

• Characters whose firearm technique has been learned entirely from cinema

The police, investigators, bikers, organised criminals and sinister men can easily populate an espionage or action campaign.

They might be members of rival agencies, criminal factions or competing groups attempting to secure the same person, object or piece of information.

Add weapons, secrets and incompatible objectives.

The artwork will take care of the faces.

FROM CRIME TO MODERN HORROR

Although this is a modern collection rather than a dedicated horror pack, many of the illustrations are well suited to contemporary horror.

The Survivor may be the only person to escape an earlier attack.

The Innocent Girl may be haunted.

The Old Couple may live beside an abandoned property nobody else remembers.

The police detective may be investigating crimes that cannot be explained without destroying her career.

The Girl at the Snowy Window may be watching something approach through the storm.

The Sinister Business Guy may be entirely human.

That may make him worse.

Use the collection for:

• Supernatural investigations

• Slasher scenarios

• Conspiracy horror

• Psychological thrillers

• Crime-horror crossovers

• Cults and occult organisations

• Modern gothic stories

• Games where the authorities are part of the problem

A monster is useful.

A human being capable of choosing monstrosity is often more interesting.

PROFESSIONAL ART FOR INDEPENDENT CREATORS

Commissioning bespoke artwork remains the best way to obtain precisely the illustration a project requires.

It is also expensive.

Independent publishers must generally divide limited funds between writing, editing, layout, promotion, printing and the dangerous fantasy of paying themselves.

Stock art provides a practical alternative.

It can help you:

• Illustrate characters and encounters

• Break up dense sections of text

• Establish the tone of a modern setting

• Complete adventures and smaller supplements

• Add impact to chapter openings

• Create case files and player handouts

• Populate supporting-character sections

• Build a reusable library for future projects

• Reserve commission funds for essential bespoke artwork

• Replace every remaining box labelled ART GOES HERE

One strong portrait can make a minor character memorable.

Twenty-five distinct illustrations can populate an entire neighbourhood of trouble.

ART THAT CREATES STORIES

The best stock art does more than fill empty space.

It asks questions.

Why is the private investigator corrupt?

Who is being interrogated?

What did the Survivor survive?

Who is standing outside the snowy window?

Why is the businessman smiling?

What do the Old Couple remember?

Who hired the Yakuza?

Why does the Innocent Girl need protection?

What has frightened the man in the suit?

Who taught that fellow to hold a gun like that?

Choose an illustration.

Decide what the subject wants.

Place something inconvenient in their way.

Connect the resulting trouble to the player characters.

That is often enough to begin an encounter, mystery or complete campaign.

FILES AND CONTENTS

The preview shows 25 distinct black-and-white TIFF illustrations, with no duplicated colour or greyscale versions apparent.

The collection includes:

• Investigators and police

• Criminals and organised-crime figures

• Businessmen and sinister professionals

• Civilians and potential witnesses

• Character headshots

• An interrogation scene

• Rural and urban personalities

• Action-oriented figures

• Material suitable for crime, espionage and horror

This provides a broad supporting cast rather than several versions of the same small number of images.

READ THE LICENCE

The artwork is supplied for personal and professional use under the terms of the attached licence.

Read the licence before publication and ensure that your intended use, alterations and attribution comply with its requirements.

Some pieces may also appear in other Brad McDevitt collections where they suit more than one genre. Modern material naturally overlaps with horror, science fiction, urban fantasy and historical gaming.

You can explore the complete Brad McDevitt Stock Art range or browse other modern stock-art collections.

The witness has disappeared.

The detective is compromised.

The businessman denies everything.

Your manuscript still needs pictures.

One of these problems is easily solved.