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Description
I remember sitting in a hamburger joint with my best friend who introduced me to DnD and other tabletop games this one late winter evening. Our college group had been doing a lot of homebrew one shot campaigns as part of a horror saga. Our college art studio was practically our home away from home and it became the place for these late night horror sessions. The idea was simple: survival is highly unlikely but there is always a chance. Each session was intense and we all went home from remembering these stories.

In that hamburger joint I pitched my campaign idea to my friend:
“A medieval world invaded by robot demons, and the only way to survive is for knights to reverse engineer demon parts, essentially making a battle between cyber knights and robot hell. Every player would have to be prepared for multiple deaths under their belt with the idea being that a single static party could not survive such staggering odds unscathed, and the deaths of such player characters would have ripple effects on the world going forward.”
My friend thought it was a neat idea to test out and it ended up being our main campaign during the college art program. A campaign that unfortunately became discontinued with the appearance of Covid-19.

But what was significant about this campaign was that I made every monster from scratch. I didn't want to explain to the party every time they encountered a demon to "imagine it with horns and claws but robotic. Also it's black and red". In order to avoid this I decided to simply design the demons myself using red paper, black colouring pencil, and gel pen. This resulted in something of a minor card system in the sessions where I would pull out the respective demon art and place it onto the table whenever the party encountered such monsters. It added an additional level of engagement to the players, who were always wondering what the next big threat was going to be.
The campaign may have dissipated out of our schedules but my need to make more demons remained. I began posting these demon designs back in March 2021 on instagram (later deviantart) and transitioned to the digital medium to make more until I made exactly 100.

Now here we are with 100 weeks having passed since that first friday post with the Eden Spawn. It is the biggest art project I have done so far in my life. It is surreal to think I have spent almost two years of my life on this project that casually came up while getting a beef sandwich and a root beer with a fellow artist on a cold winter evening.

I want to thank the friends and family who have encouraged my continued artistic practices. I want to thank all of the people on social media who have kept tabs on my Techrune posts, including those of you who have been around from the start of this project. And of course, I want to thank my original college troupe whose enthusiasm in tabletop games granted me the inspiration to take on this challenge, and of course, provided wonderful fun memories with every session.
While this series is over, my business with the Techrune universe is not. I think the way I would put it is that Techrune is just going to sleep for now while I focus on other things in the realm of drawing. For now the book on robot demons and those who dare to stand against them is closed and I hope to see you all with future creative projects!

- C. lazuli

Description
I remember sitting in a hamburger joint with my best friend who introduced me to DnD and other tabletop games this one late winter evening. Our college group had been doing a lot of homebrew one shot campaigns as part of a horror saga. Our college art studio was practically our home away from home and it became the place for these late night horror sessions. The idea was simple: survival is highly unlikely but there is always a chance. Each session was intense and we all went home from remembering these stories.

In that hamburger joint I pitched my campaign idea to my friend:
“A medieval world invaded by robot demons, and the only way to survive is for knights to reverse engineer demon parts, essentially making a battle between cyber knights and robot hell. Every player would have to be prepared for multiple deaths under their belt with the idea being that a single static party could not survive such staggering odds unscathed, and the deaths of such player characters would have ripple effects on the world going forward.”
My friend thought it was a neat idea to test out and it ended up being our main campaign during the college art program. A campaign that unfortunately became discontinued with the appearance of Covid-19.

But what was significant about this campaign was that I made every monster from scratch. I didn't want to explain to the party every time they encountered a demon to "imagine it with horns and claws but robotic. Also it's black and red". In order to avoid this I decided to simply design the demons myself using red paper, black colouring pencil, and gel pen. This resulted in something of a minor card system in the sessions where I would pull out the respective demon art and place it onto the table whenever the party encountered such monsters. It added an additional level of engagement to the players, who were always wondering what the next big threat was going to be.
The campaign may have dissipated out of our schedules but my need to make more demons remained. I began posting these demon designs back in March 2021 on instagram (later deviantart) and transitioned to the digital medium to make more until I made exactly 100.

Now here we are with 100 weeks having passed since that first friday post with the Eden Spawn. It is the biggest art project I have done so far in my life. It is surreal to think I have spent almost two years of my life on this project that casually came up while getting a beef sandwich and a root beer with a fellow artist on a cold winter evening.

I want to thank the friends and family who have encouraged my continued artistic practices. I want to thank all of the people on social media who have kept tabs on my Techrune posts, including those of you who have been around from the start of this project. And of course, I want to thank my original college troupe whose enthusiasm in tabletop games granted me the inspiration to take on this challenge, and of course, provided wonderful fun memories with every session.
While this series is over, my business with the Techrune universe is not. I think the way I would put it is that Techrune is just going to sleep for now while I focus on other things in the realm of drawing. For now the book on robot demons and those who dare to stand against them is closed and I hope to see you all with future creative projects!

- C. lazuli