Designing the King

Everything starts with the king.

Not just because of the game, but because of what it represents. Power, presence, and responsibility.

But the question was never just what a king is.

It was who that king should be.

And that was not simple.

Where do you even start?

I found myself going back to what I had seen, what I had learned, and what I had not.

I thought about our history. About the parts that are visible, and the parts that are not.

I could have started with ancient civilizations. Places like Kemet, known today as ancient Egypt, where systems of architecture, mathematics, and governance were developed at a level that still shapes the world today. But even then, I realized how little of that story I had actually been taught.

I could have looked to West Africa. Empires like Mali and Songhai, regions that carried their own systems of leadership, trade, and influence. Histories that I knew existed, but had never fully explored.

And then there is the history that shaped so much of what we see today.

The Transatlantic Slave Trade displaced millions of our people, but it did not erase identity. Culture, memory, and resilience carried through, even when everything else was taken. That part of the story is often the first thing we are shown, but it is not the only story.

And that is where the clarity started.

It was not about finding inspiration. There was no shortage of it.

It was about deciding what to carry forward.

I knew I did not want to tie this to a single moment in history. I was looking for something broader. Something that could hold meaning without being confined to one place or time.

Then I came across the story of Mansa Musa.

And it stopped me.

Because it was different from what I had been used to seeing.

Thousands of manuscripts were written, studied, and preserved. Knowledge was treated as something to be protected, carried, and passed forward.

A narrative grounded in scholarship, in legacy, and in systems of learning that existed long before what we are often taught first.

That perspective stayed with me.

And it started to shape what this piece needed to become.

From Inspiration to Concept

Once that direction became clear, things moved quickly.

I had the image in my mind. Now I needed to find it.

This was not recent history. There is no single, definitive image of Mansa Musa. What exists are interpretations shaped over time, through different lenses.

So I started searching.

I looked across references, illustrations, and historical interpretations. Different artists. Different perspectives. Different ways of representing the same idea.

I gathered everything that felt close. Not to copy, but to understand.

Reference Exploration

Once I had enough, the next step was to bring it together.

Not as separate pieces, but as one direction.

Concept Image

That was the turning point.

It was no longer just an idea. It was something I could see.

The concept.

From here, it moves into form.