Medusa

The Medusa is a classic creature (of Greek mythology if you don't know, and if you don't know a classic creature like a medusa from mythology what are you doing liking D&D anyway). Too often I feel that these monster women, which in the myths turn people to stone though an overwhelming mystical ugliness, get portrayed in too sexy a way too often. Like, just a scaly hot chick with snakes for hair that turns you to stone because her eyes are magic or something.

In D&D, their petrification powers do come from their eyes (called petrifying gaze), so I guess you get a free pass for that. But I tried to get the more monstrous aspect of the original Medusa across because having a monster that turns you to stone through sheer ugliness just strikes me as more interesting than magic eyes. That's horror stuff right there. You can't even sneak up and kill her in her sleep because her awful melted, pockmarked, scarred, malformed, sunken, twisted, scaly, oozing face is like right there, man.

And then I up and come with something mildly unsexy but otherwise just a silhouette. I did have something a bit uglier in my sketchbook, but I started doing some silhouettes which just looked nicer. That and if I rendered Medusa's true face at the height of my capabilities I may not have an audience anymore. I do this for your own safety, folks.

The MCM Expo was quite swell, despite me messing up on printing times and being unable to bring new stock. Still, it was nice and I sold out on some of my things and got to talk to some nice people and get a handful of new followers out of the deal. Special hello to the nice girl that recognized me from the internet (always an ego boost). I hope that the rush at the MLP booth wasn't too taxing and that you're enjoying the goofy hippogriff drawing.

Devourer

The Devourer is a giant undead creature, looking like a mummified shambling creature with great claws and an exposed ribcage. There's a little person in the ribcage. This little person is YOU.

Well, not really you. Potentially you. As in it's a full-round save-or-die ability it uses to suck the soul out of you and stick in its chest, slowly being consumed as it uses its magical abilities. This is another creature you should probably stick to using arrows for.

Also, this weekend (26th-27th of May) me and Joe Sparrow will be at the London MCM Expo. I'll be selling a couple of Dungeons & Drawings stickers and prints, and he'll be selling his own original artwork and comic. So drop by and say hi!

Arcane Ooze

You know what's hard to design? Oozes. There's only so many ways you can try to design an amoeba. Still, this is a sight better than that catastrophe under the title of Reekmurk. Eegh. I should really redo that particular image.

Some people have a lot of complaints about D&D being really caster-biased. Wizards and such are really squishy early game, when in later levels they gain powers of deific proportions, leaving combat-based classes in the dust. Well, for the sake of balance in the game, you have to break out the occasional mage-killer. The kinda monster where you totally aren't targeting the caster; it just likes to eat magic. If you didn't want to get eaten by a giant magic-eating lime jelly maybe you shoulda rolled a rogue.

This fella's shown up a couple of times now. He doesn't seem to be a very good wizard. I should probably give him a name. Rinceko? Orkwind? I'm sure I'll think of something.

Crypt Chanter

The Crypt Chanter is music-themed wraith. They gather together in choirs and orchestras, and using their lyrical powers they overwhelm nearby creatures then slowly begin to drain the life from them. When the victim dies, he rises and becomes another member of the group under the control of a spectral conductor.

Personally, I quite like monsters whose strategy seems a little bit more mysterious than "smack the PCs with my scary-strong attacks". These fellas are incorporeal too so that's... almost like being a slighty invisible shadow? Well, if you fluff them right they can be. Just find a way to block all the exits and the PCs are now stuck in a room with some weird spooky hymns echoing around as wavering shadowy singers float above your heads.

Featured on The Going Last Gaming Podcast's May of the Dead Carnival.