Omios Ures is a D&D artist’s weirder, post-heroic fantasy

Even as AI image generation has made the average artist's life harder as work slows down and rates get squeezed, illustration has probably never been more central to tabletop publishing. Books are bought and sold because of what painters, digital or analogue, are able to do with lines and color. At Rascal, we’ve been trying to write more about this aspect of games — how artists build worlds, like with Zephyr, Trudvang, and now, Omios Ures.

Matheus Graef is a Brazilian artist who has worked on games like Age of Mythology: Retold, Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, and Draw Steel. He’s painted monsters and heroes of all stripes but now he’s angling to go somewhere weirder. Omios Ures is a world of sword and sorcery after the heroes have had their way with it. It’s still wild and mysterious and people would like it to stay that way. People who mess with that stuff are bad news. 

The game reads: “Today, adventurers are but a dying breed. “Unpredictable,” says the king. “Unreliable,” says the guildmaster. “No admittance!” reads the tavern sign.” 

Mechanically, the rules of the game are dead simple and very approachable. It has a fun, freeform magic system built around combining key words for creative effects, discards classes and levels, and characters advance through failure. Omnios Ures is still technically in development and is available for free, and Graef hopes that can be the case even after its officially published. He is also working on an interactive, digital bestiary featuring a “Monster Maker”, designed by collaborator Bruno Picciafuoco.

Rascal interviewed Graef and asked about how he got started as a professional artist, how images come to him, and what makes Omios Ures exciting to work on. 

This interview was edited slightly for clarity.