The Heir of Orcus: Verse III book design

For the cover to Anthony Joyce’s The Heir of Orcus: Verse III, I worked with illustrator Jack Kaiser to make a cover treatment that showcased both his art and my cyberpunk-influenced title treatment. This adventure is the first ever Adventurers League module sponsored by Roll20 and will be available both digital and in print very soon!

The interior was meant to evoke a “cyberpunk” vibe, which is a bit unusual for D&D and allowed me to take a few liberties with the standard D&D type palette. At the same time, it was important to still look like a D&D 5e book (because it is one!) so the differences are largely aesthetic.

The magenta, teal, and purple colors were chosen to underscore the cyberpunk feel (“psyberpunk,” really—because they’re psionic). Because this will also be printed, I chose colors that would pop as much as possible in print, despite the limitations of print-on-demand printing.

I built the InDesign template, laid out every page, and did all of the print production for all three editions of the book: a standard PDF eBook, the perfect bound print-on-demand softcover, and an alternate “printer-friendly” version (all black and white, with very few images). And because I have some copy editing experience, I also performed a little uncredited copy editing, to ensure consistency with the D&D House Style Guide (and the Chicago Manual of Style, which it uses) and throughout the book.