The Avaris Core Manual is a player's guide for a complicated and collaborative storytelling game (not unlike the very popular Dungeons & Dragons) where one person plays the narrator and supporting cast while everyone else plays a main character. Our story is set in a distant future on a far away planet where advanced biotechnology meets psychic abilities; where the cult-like devotion of the church clashes with corporate interests utilizing necromancy to gain wealth and power. Welcome... to Avaris.
I was asked to not only condense and reformat this almost 400-page guidebook for production, but also to create all of the imaging for the world of Avaris using AI-generated graphics as an entry point. Using a combination of Adobe Firefly for AI image generation, Photoshop for image editing, and InDesign to reformat and produce the manual itself, I carefully crafted the visual nature of this new universe over several months.
In the echoing chambers of Firefly's AI-powered engine, I summoned ethereal landscapes and eerie cyborg creatures, giving shape to the vivid imagery of Avaris. These generated graphics and edits were the mystical portal through which players would step into this futuristic and enigmatic universe. It was here that pixels danced like phantoms, weaving together the fabric of our collective imagination and coming away with a new adventure for those brave enough to explore.
