The Blood War engulfs the heroes of Baldur’s Gate in the latest Dungeons & Dragons comic series, Infernal Tides by Jim Zub, Max Dunbar, and Sebastian Cheng, from IDW Publishing. Drawing devilish inspiration from the Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus storyline from Wizards of the Coast, Infernal Tides casts the indomitable ranger Minsc and his companion, the miniature giant space hamster, Boo, into the ceaseless conflict between formidable legions of the Nine Hells and fiendish forces from the Abyss. Sworn defenders of justice and enemies to evil, the mighty Minsc and the valiant Boo are joined by a daring group of adventurers as they journey across the Sword Coast and beyond, to combat a rising and sinister menace that threatens all of the Forgotten Realms.

For untold ages the Blood War has raged across the warped landscape of Avernus, the first layer of the Nine Hells, as chaotic demons from the Abyss traverse the Styx River to besiege the devils’ domain and engage the regimented and dauntless armies of Hell. It is within the context of the Blood War that the Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus adventure for the 5th edition of “the world’s greatest roleplaying game,” as well as IDW’s Infernal Tides series, is set. Described by Christopher Perkins, Dungeons & Dragons Principal Narrative Designer, as “Dungeons & Dragons meets Mad Max: Fury Road,” Descent into Avernus takes adventurers from the grim and seedy streets of Baldur’s Gate to the depths of Hell to take arms against demons and devils, command infernal war machines, and depose a fallen-angel-turned-overlord of the Nine Hells. Infernal Tides writer, Jim Zub, and series artist Max Dunbar were intimately involved in the development of the Descent into Avernus storyline with Wizards of the Coast’s Dungeons & Dragons team as story consultant and concept artist, respectively, and their fiendish expertise and crucial contributions to the roleplaying sourcebook are on display in the IDW Publishing series. 

The comic book writer and artist, Jim Zub is the author of every IDW Publishing tie-in comic featuring the Dungeons & Dragons brand since the launch of the game’s popular fifth edition in 2014, including Legends of Baldur’s Gate, Shadows of the Vampire, Frost Giant’s Fury, and Evil at Baldur’s Gate, as well as Oni Press’s Ricky and Morty Vs. Dungeons & Dragon and Ricky and Morty Vs. Dungeons & Dragon II: Painscape, with Patrick Rothfuss and Troy Little. When Wizards of the Coast started work on the ambitious Avernus adventure, the Dungeons & Dragons creative team turned to the experience of Jim Zub.

In conversation with Screen Rant, the creator reflected, “After working on the comics for a few years and building up a solid working relationship with the Wizards of the Coast D&D crew, story developer Adam Lee reached out to ask if I’d be interested in doing a ‘story push,’ an in-house brainstorming session for the book that would eventually become Descent Into Avernus.” Additionally, Jim worked with artist Max Dunbar on IDW’s Legends of Baldur’s Gate and the two were instrumental to the creation of iconic creatures and curiosities in Avernus and to the thematic development of the Dungeons & Dragons adventure. Jim Zub say of his co-conspirator Max Dunbar, “the artist drawing the stunning page art and covers for Infernal Tides, was also a part of designing Descent Into Avernus and his concept art found its way into all kinds of cool parts of D&D canon. When he asked about including some grazing animals to establish scale in one of his concept pieces, that creature became the now infamous ‘Abyssal Chicken.’” 

Jim Zub cut his teeth on Dungeons & Dragons and his 2019 TEDx Talk about the enduring influence of the roleplaying game on his career, “Raised by Dragons,” highlights a life well-spent. Of his impressionable years, Zub explained, “My older brother Joe read tons of swords & sorcery and sci-fi novels and he informed a lot of my fandom early on. When he and my older cousins started playing D&D, I was the youngest player at the table and it lit a creative fire inside me to entertain people and tell stories. I wouldn’t be a writer today without D&D.” Beginning his art career in the animation industry in Canada, Zub picked up his first paying gig recoloring Conan stories for Dark Horse Comics and what was “supposed to be a summer job at the UDON studio instead turned into a host of different jobs over nine years - coloring, illustration, writing and eventually project management and editorial.”

With a handful of IDW titles, collected in Dungeons & Dragons: Days of Endless Adventure, and his work with Oni Press spanning the past six years, Jim Zub is the most prolific Dungeons & Dragons comic writer in the industry and his swords and sorcery credentials extend to Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian, Pathfinder comics based on the Paizo roleplaying game, and BOOM! Studios Munchkin comics. When asked where a writer at the vanguard of the genre finds his muse, the writer replied, “For me, D&D isn’t huge armies smashing into each other Lord of the Rings-style, it’s kooky, strange and character-centric. I want it to feel a bit like everything could go off the rails, like the DM doesn’t have complete control of where the adventure is going – because that’s what happens when you play D&D.”

The characters Minsc and Boo were originally conceived in the 1998 Baldur’s Gate video game series developed by BioWare and were brought to IDW’s Dungeons & Dragons comics by Jim Zub. Incorporating the noble ranger and his hamster ally into an adventure party of his own making, was a dream for the writer. “Getting the chance to create new canon characters for D&D is an absolute thrill. I didn’t want to have the classic party balance (fighter, rogue, wizard, cleric) since that rarely happens in my own tabletop games. A ranger, wild mage, paladin, and two rogues feels like the kind of group dynamic I’d see at a real gaming table.”

In IDW’s Dungeons & Dragons: Infernal Tides, Minsc and his compatriots find themselves caught between warring factions in the Blood War as the planar conflict spills into the streets of Baldur’s Gate. Perplexed by secrets hidden in an infernal puzzle box and hounded by agents of the archdevil, Zariel, the heroes set out for the fortress-library of Candlekeep to unlock the mystery. But with each unraveling of the cypher, forces from the nether regions of Hell threaten to drag them all down into the endless Blood War.

Dungeons & Dragons: Infernal Tides #2 catches fire this week from IDW Publishing.

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Source: IDW