An alien shark feeding off the living islands of an alien world, the wave lurcher is a partner in the search for life.

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Sarah's Website

Music by Jason Shaw at Audionautix.com

This episode of Making a

Monster is brought to you by the

Book of Extinction pre-order store.

the Wave Lurcher is

a creature that has evolved to attach

itself to a giant moving island like

creature called the yango using its

hook-filled suckers, it is able to

attach there, and then it uses a jaw

that can protrude in and out rapidly

to cut off pieces of dead flesh off

of this large island sort of creature.

And Viedat encounters it because

the shoals of Kindichi, the

humanoids of this planet, have

them sort of semi domesticated.

They wash their skins, they feed them

if they're having a lean time, they

keep them sort of near their boats.

And then when they want to find the

moving island creature, the yangos,

they will harness one To a tiny raft.

One of the reasons I call them

wave lurchers is because another

word for a greyhound is a lurcher.

So if you picture a hound and a

hare, they take the wave lurcher,

they tie it up to a tiny raft and

they're like, okay, go find the prey.

And they're super fast and

they head out across the water

very, very quickly and agilely.

And then they can find this

large island like creature.

And then once they're there, they

attach themselves, they have a nice

meal, and then the people who are on

the raft can explore the creature.

There's other creatures on there,

there's other food sources on

there, water sources on there.

So the wave lurcher is almost like

the bridge between the people of

the world and the most important

creature in the ecosystem, the yangos.

Welcome back to Making a Monster.

This is my first episode after

the conclusion of the Book

of Extinction Kickstarter.

So I wanna say a quick thank you

to the 2,309 backers who brought

to life this Monster Manual of Ex.

Think species.

As designer and audience, we have embraced

creatures rooted in the interconnected

ecologies of our own natural world

and the choices we've made about them.

So for animals made monstrous and

magical, I'm very pleased to bring

you another conversation with a

designer who shares that naturalist

philosophy, and for this episode.

Let us carry you to worlds beyond

the stars with Astra Fauna:

Expeditions, a story filled art book

where every chapter showcases the

adventure of an alien scientist who's

exploring life on a far off planet.

Sarah, welcome back.

Thank you.

Happy to be back.

It's been a while.

It's been a hot minute.

It has, it has,

and like a whole lot of stuff

has gone on in between then.

We last interviewed at GenCon 2022.

So I know I've asked you this

before and gotten the answers, but

please introduce yourself again.

Yeah, sure.

My name is Sarah Dahlinger.

I am a creature concept sculptor largely,

but I also do illustration and I like

to focus on, the biology of the creature

and getting a make believe creature

to have anatomy that would make sense.

And then on top of that, because

people wanna hear the stories

of the creatures and stuff like

that, I also do a bit of writing.

So to tell the tale of

the things that I make.

You've worked for Wizards on

D&D; you've worked for Metal Weave

Games, which was how we last got in

touch; Evil Hat, the Monster of the

Wee k people; Monty Cook; Paizo,

even the National Park Service.

So basically all of the

things that I like to do.

If I were to encounter your work in

the wild, how would I be able to tell

"that's a Sarah Dollinger piece"?

, Sarah Dahlinger: I think nowadays

when people see my work in the

wild, they generally are attracted

to that it's a unique monster.

When I was at GenCon, the one that we

spoke at, I had a number of ADs stop by

and they were like, wow, this is like

a creature that I've never seen before.

And then the second thing that people

often to me is that because I work a

lot in ZBrush, a lot of my stuff is

like, it looks very highly detailed.

Painting all the details, whew,

that's a ton of work, but you can get

'em a little bit easier in ZBrush.

So, my work tends to be

really, really highly detailed.

When did you start playing

tabletop role-playing games?

Or were you a player before

you illustrated for them?

Yes.

Yeah.

You know, it was really funny.

I was in high school and my best friend

at the time, her older brother had like,

I don't know, a second edition rule book.

And I was like, oh, this is super cool.

And I could find no one to play with me.

So I just like, I, so I just read it.

And then because I was

introduced with that.

That was the time the 3.5 Monster

Manual came out and I bought that

before I ever played any D&D.

I still have it.

It's so well loved.

It's like it's falling apart.

I used to just stare at the

pictures, just for hours and hours.

So then, you know, I graduate high school,

I go to college, I meet my roommate,

and my roommate had this brilliant plan.

They're like, all right, I'm

gonna end up with a single room.

I'm gonna scare this girl away.

I'm gonna tell her that me and my

friends all play Dungeons and Dragons.

So she comes up and like we're

Dungeons and Dragons players.

And they're like, oh man,

she'll, she'll run scared.

And I was like, yes.

I was like, I have been looking

for a group for four years.

So, and they were like, oh,

well, do you wanna play?

So we still came to this day

wow, that that story ends

about as well as it possibly could.

I think

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I mean, it's, been great.

where does Astra

Fauna fit in this story?

Every time you make a

big personal project, I find that it's

like one of those things, it's an itch you

need to scratch or the project that your

12-year-old self wished you had, I find.

So that's what Astra Fauna started as

is I really wanted to do a book that

showcased my full range of abilities.

So I wanted to show like, you know,

I can take a 2D concept and I can

iterate on that and I can make a

monster and then we can do a 3D

concept and you can iterate on that.

And that was how I wanted to do art wise.

And originally the book was

almost like 90% art focused.

And then I found that I had another

book that was more story focused, and I

found that people were identifying and

appreciating the story focus book more.

And so I was like, oh, okay, we'll

just write stories to go with all

this art that I wanted to make.

And that's sort of how the two

blended together to make Astra Fauna.

Each chapter has a new

planet and a new protagonist.

And when you go to the next chapter,

you get kind of an intro to the

new protagonist, what they're all

about, and then what they're doing.

I stopped counting at 230 images,

um, for the, for the book.

There was like, I think one

more chapter to go after that.

And I was like, you know

what, we're, we're good.

I'm not gonna count anymore.

And so , the images have like

field notes next to them too.

So you have your main story

column and then your field notes.

The stories are very wide

ranging too because, like they're

definitely out there to do science

in space, but, stuff comes up.

So it's some are very light and

some are a little bit more heavy.

would you call this

speculative evolution?

Looking at this project, it reminds me

a lot of, uh, Netflix's alien worlds.

And I'm trying desperately to find,

maybe you can help me with this.

I'm trying desperately find the, the

author that like, first triggered

speculative evolution in my brain.

Um,

Oh, I

know what you're talking

you're, you know what I'm talking

yes, and

I know the name, I know the

it Larry Niven?

It's not.

We can,

Yeah, I'll, I'll find it

Yeah,

the Darwin or the Beagle.

And I can't.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A lot.

I know.

I know what you're talking about.

And people are like, oh my God,

your work reminds me of this guy.

And I looked at it and I was

like, oh, that guy's cool.

And.

So you're in great company.

So let's pick one as a standout.

What is the

So the wave lurcher

is one of my favorite creatures because

it's from, I think, my favorite chapter

for creature development out of the

whole book, I mean, I like it all,

but the mostly water only world with

a few islands was really fun to do.

The wave lurcher is based off of a shark.

It's a shark alien that has adapted

to, latch onto these massive,

massive like moving islands sort

of things that are called yangos.

Because the yangos are so

big, like, really, really big.

And because they dive, so like

a lot of people when they make

like the moving Island character,

they just kinda stay at the top.

Mine will dive periodically

and like erase all life on it

and then it has to start again.

And that's sort of part of the evolution

of the world and how that world works.

The wave lurchers have multiple, like

suckers on their fins and they have a

protrusion on their face that has suckers.

And then, I pulled in some squid

anatomy to have the suckers have

like little teeth on them too,

so they can really hold on there.

Then for its mouth, I kind of pulled

in some anatomy from the goblin

shark and the cookie cutter shark.

So It'll latch onto these giant beasts.

But these giant beasts

they have, like dead skin.

And it needs to come off.

So they serve a purpose.

They feed off of the dead skin on this

giant creature and therefore help keep

it healthy and they help prevent it

from getting diseases from getting into

that wounded flesh or that dead flesh.

So they're actually like a

really important part of the

ecosystem of the world as well.

But they are kind of terrifying looking.

One of my favorite questions is

asking the visual and literary influences

that go into a given monster, and it's

rare that they're all so clearly defined

in the way that you've defined them.

And it's rare that they're all biological.

That's sort of how

I make all my creatures, and I'm

not gonna say that I invented it.

The person I was taught, that

taught me all this is Terryl

Whitlatch and she did a lot of the,

monster development for Star Wars.

I took her class on

No kidding.

absolutely amazing.

And so she teaches that technique

where you look at the natural world,

all naturally occurring animals,

and then what you do is you think

of what you want the creature to do.

Like, okay, so I want a

shark, I want it to be fast.

I want it to be able to suck onto this

like whale like thing, and I want it to

be able to easily feed off of dead flesh.

So then that's your, your brief

and then you go into biology and

you're like, okay, what animals

that always already exist, do that?

And then you kind of pick and

pull little features and then you

sort of blend it all together and

that's how you get a creature.

It's really fun to do.

It is.

It's super fun.

Most of the people I talk

to are designers first and artists

second, if they are artists at all.

So this is a really new approach from

what I've heard on the show so far.

Oh, cool.

Coming to the game design portion

of this though, you put together system

neutral stat blocks for this thing.

What did you learn from writing system

neutral stat blocks for these monsters?

And how's that helpful for game masters?

It's funny, I thought it

would be really hard, but for me, because

I'm a player, it was essentially the

system neutral stat blocks just kind of

has to tell you how big it is, how fast

it is, how strong it is, how smart it is.

Does it have a personality?

Like does it have a Charisma score?

And because you take so much time sort

of developing them almost from the

inside out, it was not hard to really do.

And um, oh, the other thing too, and

this was actually really fun, is all my

system neutral stat blocks contain hooks.

So how you could implement them

into, so writing those was super

fun because I'm like, you couldn't

encounter this creature this way.

Or maybe, you know, this guy

needs help with this, or, or it

could be stuck here or something

like that so those are fun to do.

I wanna circle back a bit and hit

the framing device that you've got here.

These are all travel logs or field

notes from different point of view

characters, different alien scientists.

So tell us a little bit about

Kindichi the World and Viedat,

the scientist who's working on it.

Yeah, so Kindichi

is A planet that's filled with water.

But because I wanted the focus to

be on these moving island creatures,

the yangos, Kindichi actually has

very, very little actual islands.

It's just like if the water

levels were super high.

So the only islands are the very tippy

tops of like their highest mountains.

And um, Viedat is a she

looks like a space bug.

And one of the things I wanted to

explore with her, and actually one of

the things I kind of like to explore

with my work in general is just because

something might look a certain way

doesn't mean they are a certain way.

So like a great example with

our own present world is a bear.

If you were an alien that came

down and saw a bear, you'd be

like, that looks super cuddly.

that looks like I could pet it if

you didn't know what a bear was.

Right?

And like, you know, if you know

that if you walk into the middle of

the forest and try and pet grizzly

bears, it's not gonna go great.

So that's one of the things I was

exploring with Viedat is like she

is a bit insecure and very smart and

super nice and really wants to make

friends with people and looks like

a horrifying space insect, you know?

So a bear in reverse.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Her mouthpieces are

obviously like a bug mouth.

So she has, she makes these little

drones to solve various problems for her.

So she has one that talks for her and

she has one that helps her scan like the

oceans for creatures and stuff like that.

So she has stuff to help, they

help her in her daily life and they

help her in her scientific job.

So she comes to this, planet because,

um, she can fly and she's pretty

good at it, but the planet is just

so, so, so vast, is that she keeps

failing and she can't find anything.

And if you watch any nature

documentaries, I just watched one

they're trying to find a pod of

orca, like a specific pod of orca.

It took them like two years to find this

specific pod of orca and because like our

own oceans are vast and this planet's,

oceans are even bigger than that.

So, She's just failing and failing.

And then she stumbles upon the,

um, so my humanoid characters for

that are these essentially they're

all bards, so they're really fun.

Their entire culture, their entire

culture is different sorts of bards and

they're different types of fish people.

they're called the shoals of Kindichi.

So we have the REI is like

their sort of like ray people.

And then we have like an eel

type person and stuff like that.

The Ray Risi, they're all storytellers.

And then you have one that

they're all like dancers.

And then you have another

one that do like beat poetry.

Um, another one that

like only does tragedy.

So the neat thing with interacting

with them is you can go on a whole

bunch of neat adventures, but you have

to essentially pass various trials

and they're all different and they're

all like, sort of performance based.

Um, so it can be a neat thing

to dovetail into a home brew

campaign that you're maybe running.

But anyway, she enc encounters this

group of people, the Shoals and She talks

about getting to know them and there's

a period of time where she's sort of

like, Hey, I'm here to study your planet.

And they're sort of like,

maybe you're sketchy.

And she's like, I'm actually really not.

And you know.

So they become friends and

eventually they help her find the

things that she needs to find.

So tell me about

Vita and the Wave Archer.

How does she, how does she encounter this?

And if you can, this, this I think

might be the thing that I cut into

the, the front of the episode.

So I don't know if you remember this

from the last time we, we talked,

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

I remember this.

We were talking about the, the shoe crock

Yeah.

Still have that book on my shelf.

oh, nice.

That's awesome.

Thank you.

Yeah, absolutely.

Looking at the wave lurcher,

what does this tell us about

the world that we live in?

Does this help us understand anything

about how we live or how we should?

One of the things that

I try to do with the entire book, this is

prevalent in every chapter in Astro Fauna,

is I sort of made it nicer than our world.

Like, yes, there's problems, and yes,

there's strife, but in pretty much every

chapter, humans might have chosen to be

cruel to this animal, but they weren't.

Or if it was a human, they might have

chosen to be racist at this moment,

but the people in Astra Fauna weren't.

With the wave lurcher,

they treat it very well.

Like they don't try to make

it something that it's not.

And I'm not saying there

isn't domesticated creatures

in Astra Fauna, there is.

It's just, in any time that you have

a situation where a human could have

done it poorly, I try to make the

creatures in Astra Fauna do it well.

I guess it was a bit of a response

to most of the time I was writing it

during the pandemic and I just sort of

wanted a nice place for me to go and.

I just sort of needed to make

myself like a little oasis.

at any point in time, like when I

have a scientist go to a chapter,

they always defer to the native people

and talk to them respectfully and

like I try to make no one a dick.

Basically, you know, it's like that,

that that golden rule of, of being

an artist is, you know, don't be

a dicks and, and no one really is.

It's just,

Wow.

yeah.

Yeah, so much of the speculative

fiction in, in D&D and I'm thinking

of things like cyberpunk and a lot

of the other really central and

paramount, science fiction epics.

Star Trek is one of those ones that

is unusual in that it's optimistic

and it paints its world that way.

It's fascinating to me that you've

made a world that is explicitly

imagined without problems.

But it's funny

cuz there is totally problems.

Like everyone has a

problem when they go there.

It's just that in general, people

tend to do the right thing.

Hmm.

So other than like personal

escapism, was there a goal for that?

Was there something you were

trying to get at with this?

Some sort of literary principle

or genre you were accessing?

Honestly, a lot of it

was just, it goes back to the whole you

wished existed when you were like 12.

And I don't get me wrong,

like I love four Hammer 40 K.

Like I love, I love some really,

really squalid, terrible,

there's no hope sort of thing.

But that's already been done.

Um, so I wanted to do

something that wasn't that.

And part of it, me being.

In the world of Covid, I just didn't

want to make my life any more dark,

so I made it a little bit brighter.

So tell me about the Kickstarter.

Yeah, the

Kickstarter, I'm super excited.

It's to launch the hardcover

version of the book.

Oh, I got the samples from the printer.

They're gorgeous.

They're so nice.

It's so perfect.

So the book is a hundred

percent ready to print.

We just need, to buy the printing, costs

and shipping and handling and printing.

Two features of the book.

there's going to be system neutral stat

blocks that you can get for every MPC

and every creature, so you can dovetail

them into your home brew campaigns.

And the other thing that I really

wanted is I had some people who were

close to me, who I started talking to

when I was about two chapters in, and

they expressed that they had a hard

time due to various, like migraines or

troubles with their eyes or whatnot.

They had a tr hard time reading art books.

And so one of the things that I'm doing

with this is I have accessibility features

that comes standard with every book.

So the book will come with a

screen reader friendly transcript.

A transcript that has the dyslexic

friendly font, and an audiobook.

And there'll be two versions of the

audiobook, one with sound effects and

one that's like just stripped down.

Because I want people to be able

to take this world and run with it.

I want everyone to be

able to experience it.

So if you need to have the audiobook

playing and then you're looking

at the pictures, that's fine.

Or if you need to have something,

read the text transcript to you.

That's fine.

All of it, like all the text in

there is accessible and all the

pictures in there are as accessible

as I can possibly make them.

So that's just a standard feature

that comes with all the books.

So the book has five stories, over 230

images, which we've already discussed,

yeah, sta blocks accessibility

features, uh, yeah, hard cover.

And it's gorgeous and we

just need to get it printed.

What's the fastest

way to get to Astra Fauna?

So if you wanted to,

you could just write astrafauna.com

into your search engine, and that will

bring you to the Astra Fauna webpage.

And then there's a big button that you

can just click and go to the Kickstarter.

Or if you're just on Kickstarter and you,

you know, went to search in Astra Fauna in

Kickstarter, then it'll pop right up to.

Thanks for listening

to Making a Monster.

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blocks, art and digital tokens for

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New episodes are coming out this

summer, including some exciting episodes

of Making, a Monster Extinction,

and if you miss the Kickstarter

for Book of Extinction, guess what?

You can still get the book.

It's on our pre-order store at

mage hand press.com/extinction.

The first 130 pages of the book

are available to you immediately

when you buy from this.

Site and though they are a little rough

around the edges, you will have access to

future updates and the full and complete

version of the book as they are finished.