Dungeons and Drawings

Ice Serpent

2012-02-19T23:21:00.001Z

Beyond the normal dangers of Faerûn's freezing North, a winding invisible predator is found. What seems at first to be the work of some twisting unnatural wind working itself over the snow and rocks is something else. Soon you find yourself trapped in the cold coils of a cruel unseen something, squeezing your bones and soaking up your life-heat. Something thin, quick and frigid tickles your cheek.

It's difficult to find a creature to go under the elemental tag that'll be interesting. Most of them are X Elemental or Y Elemental, while the more interesting ones get filed under the outsider type. The Ice Serpent is something that managed to slip through the gaps of that classification hoo-ha.

This creature has an interesting way of dealing damage. It's pretty simple in its attacks, being mostly a creature that grabs and squeezes, lacking even a bite or slam attack. It's constrict deals a combination of lethal damage (the constriction itself) and nonlethal damage (cold damage as it drains the heat from you). Potentially, it can just suck the heat out of you until you're unconscious then slither off. And then a blizzard kills you. Them's the breaks.

Also a little bit strange that despite the fact that this creature subsits on the body heat of living things, it still takes double damage from fire sources (it has the cold subtype). I guess something has to balance out the absurd DR it has.

Abeil (animated)

2012-02-12T10:23:00.000Z

THIS S IS ANIMATED YOU SHOULD FOR RIZZLES CLICK THE PICTURE

Now that that's out of the way, this is an Abeil... vassal. A vassal is probably most accurate.

The Abeil are a race of tall, industrious bee-like humanoids. Their society is divided into three castes: vassals (the workers, in all different roles of society), soldiers and a queen. The worker is obviously the weakest of these three, but still possess a muscle-atrophying poison and the ability to create a buzz with their wings that leaves enemies into a sleepy stupor. Soldiers also have an amplified eardrum-rupturing version of this.

Like many insects, Abeils like to expand their territory, partially through economic means, which may or may not be good for any other surrounding cultures.

And now for my biological lecture for anybody who cares to read far enough down to this bit. I know why they seperated abeil society into worker-soldier-queen society: it makes for easy classification into who the commoners, the ones you fight and the one you diplomatize with are gonna be. Actual bee society is also quite interesting in that it's a worker-drone-queen society, where the all-female workers do all the work and defending of the hive. The stingless, all-male drones exist purely for the purpose of mating with the queen, usually of a different hive, since the queen stores all the genetic material necessary from previous drones for her 3-5 year lifespan.

The queen is also a really interesting thing. While the term 'queen' implies control, she's a slave to the hive. She literally spends her whole life laying eggs, and if she ever stops, the workers will raise a larva to become the new queen, which will kill the old one. Beekeepers usually imprison the queen in a certain section of the hive, so we can enjoy delicious, larva-free honey.

Also a little bit disappointed that abeils don't have a racial penalty to smoke-based attacks.

Disenchanter

2012-02-08T16:56:00.002Z

Aw dang, I shouldn'ta given the PCs that staff; they're really screwing over my campaign. I'd better break out the big guns.

The Disenchanter is yet another creature in the category of silly creations by wizards, although this an also be classified as "silly things generals commission from silly wizards to fight other silly wizards". Like the Rust Monster, the Disenchanter is another creature in the DMs arsenal which can be (ab)used to take those uppity PCs down a peg.

At CR 17 (14 levels higher than the Rust Monster), with high AC and lots of hit points, it guarantees the destruction of a few magic items. It's a large, giraffe-like creature with a long sticky tongue it uses to grab objects from a character and begin draining the enchantments out of them, turning them into relatively useless mundane objects. It feeds on the drained magic.

The Disenchanter literally exists only to take away the characters' toys. Let me read from the Fiend Folio to you: "The Disenchanter ignores individuals who do not radiate magic and lopes away if there's no food to be found, even if it's attacked."

So a Disenchanter attacks the party. Staff of sphere of annihilation? Well, now it's a stick. And your +5 ring of protection is now a regular gaudy ring. Also your potions are now water. And now the Disenchanter's walked away. Wow, that sucked. I guess you guys shoulda rolled higher on your Spot checks, huh.

Clockwork Mender

2012-01-30T16:59:00.001Z

Required raw materials: gold, silver, copper, rhodium, earth, amber, glass, ichor (earth elemental), blood (bird), blood (hornet), blood (own).

Being a bit late with these. I was working on last week's one and hoping to get it out on time, but it looks like it's gonna require a little bit more time.

Clockwork Menders are cat-sized vaguely insectoid machines that exist to repair other constucts. They can be individuals, but are commonly found in swarms, though the swarm doesn't last very long as Clockwork Menders will use up their own life force in the repair of another construct. Their main form of defence is a numbing poison.

With the Improved Familiar feat, some ranks in Craft (blacksmithing) and an open-minded GM, you too can have one of these little creatures as a companion. That or you can try to steal one from the plane of Mechanus.

Trying out pixel-stuff a little bit, because its fun in a way. I'm not sure if I could do this consistently, but it's still fun.

I was actually originally trying to do this with pen and ink, but found that I'm still to inexperienced with it to have the steady hand required for perfect circles.

Knell Beetle

2012-01-15T22:17:00.000Z

The Knell Beetle is yet another creature you can add to the list of the products of bored wizards. Because sometimes you have to merge a bug with a bell.

Only the description in the Monster Manual is a creature with ten legs, claws and a red carapace. That's a crab, dawg, not a beetle. I couldn't decide on what shape to give them, as you can see, because I quickly found out that it's silly. Because knell beetles are tooting lobsters.

Oh and these things are CR 10, as big as cars and move in colonies. So if you feel like finding one to laugh at, you should probably wait a few levels.

Satyr

2012-01-08T19:58:00.001Z

The Satyr bounds along the path playing his pipes. You begin to feel drowsy. Make a Will save.

The Satyr is a classic monster from Greco-Roman mythology. The Monster Manual actually had two challenge ratings for it, one with its pipes and one without. A Satyr who carries pipes around with him can play them to create three different tunes with different effects: charm person, fear or sleep. The pipes themselves are not magic; it's more like the Satyr happens to know how to play these spells.

I don't know if a CR 2 Satyr becomes a CR 4 encounter if he finds some pipes lying around, or if the CR 4 Satyr just knows the tunes, whether he has pipes or not.

Also experimenting with traditional inking. I found a collection of nibs back home over the holidays and am playing around with them, mostly because I got Bone as a Christmas present and think the inking in it is amaaazing.

Bacchae by Joe Sparrow

2012-01-02T03:15:00.002Z

After four long days traversing a wilderness seemingly inhabited only by a smattering of parched trees, you begin to wonder if you will ever see civilisation again. Your hopes suddenly rise as you begin to percieve human sounds far off in the distance - sounds of revelry, it seems - and you quicken your step towards them. A camp? A village? Could it even be a town? As your curiosity deepens, you observe a group of men and women moving over the hill towards you clothed in rags and leaves, dancing, whooping, and playing instruments.

But something seems off. The howls too gutteral, the dancing frenzied and animalian, the music strange and dischordant. And then you see their eyes, bloodshot and crazed, and you realise something is very wrong. As some instinct tells you to flee, to stay from their path, to block every sense against the hypnotic debauchery, the revellers are already upon you. The music swamps you as you steadily feel your mind become one with the endless festival, the great hunt of Dionysus, the dance of the Bacchae.

Happy New Year, everyone! Blanca's away without a functioning computer at the moment so I've been re-drafted in to help with the festivities. We talked over a bunch of NYE-themed monsters and the ones I liked most were the Bacchae, those paragonal partygoers who should serve an example (goal?!) to us all in their ability to keep a-rockin' through the early hours of the morning.

I myself had a lovely dinner in London's chinatown with a friend and saw in 2012 being kettled in by police on Waterloo Bridge! but it wasn't so bad. Hope you all have a pleasant subsequent twelve months!

Gaspar by Adam Vian

2011-12-26T16:55:00.002Z

You come across a huge deer on your travels through the Beastlands. It stands four times taller than a normal human being and antlers sprout not only from its head, but down its neck to its haunches, giving it a coat of grand bony spears. You're confident in the strength and tactics of your party as you charge through the bushes, where you surround the surprised Gaspar. It can't run anywhere without being met by fences of spears and swords. As you raise your weapons to pierce its comparatively soft underbelly, the Gaspar rears up and slams down.

There's a golden light and you can't see your quarry anymore, nor the eternal afternoon sun of Kirgala, nor the ancient trees of the Beastlands. The Gaspar didn't leave, but you did.

--

Drawing by Adam Vian of Super Flash Bros, since I'm currently trying to get my old laptop to cooperate with me and Photoshop.

Happy Holidays, folks.

Demilich

2011-12-21T00:46:00.001Z

In the darkness you make out a pile of treasure. Seated atop all this is a dessicated severed head, dusty, parchment-like skin pulled tight against the skull. The treasure gleams green in the arcane glow of the emeralds that line its mouth and stare out at you from its head. It does not move. Roll for Fortitude.

A lich is what happens when a wizard thinks living is for squares and makes itself into a skele-zombie to continue studying magic throughout eternity.

A demilich is what happens when a lich decides that plain ol' having a body's for squares and decides to encase its soul into a gem-studded bone. Normally a skull. They can be an evil sentient bejewelled rib if they feel like it.

So a demilich is even more dangerous than a regular lich, created by Gary Gygax in the infamous Tomb of Horrors adventure for the purpose of killing any player who thought D&D is just a game. In addition to all the spells that a normal lich would have, the demilich has a signature ability: trap the soul. It basically sucks the spirit out of your body (which instantly crumbles to ash) and traps it in one of its gems. It can wipe out a whole party in just over 20 seconds, combat time.

Don't worry, your soul won't be trapped inside the skull forever. The demilich will slowly eat you over the course of 24 hours.

Wraith (formerly Tark Skulltaker, human barbarian)

2011-12-18T23:29:00.000Z

Tark Skulltaker was our party's barbarian. Due to an unfotunate set of attacks involving wraiths, he died. Also unfotunately, when you're killed by a wraith, you rise as one seconds later, so that meant we had to double kill his evil spirit.

Wraiths are one of your standard D&D monsters for horror campaigns, when you want things to get a bit dangerous. We found one that had been killing kids and slew it dead, but not before withering awayTark and my pony Butterbutt. These monsters are extra dangerous because they not only hurt you when they attack you, they also drain the life from you (in D&D language, Constitution drain, the deadliest of drains). They have an aura around them that spooks animals, making it difficult for rangers, druid or just anyone who fights from horseback to engage in combat. Third, they're not solid, making them super difficult to hit. Spackle was pretty useless in that particular combat until I remembered I'm the one with the wand of holy magic and started whacking the wraith with it.

RIP Tark.

At least this means that the guy that played him is gonna get a second character portrait now. But not for a while, so that means I get to go back to doing regular monsters!

Valenmar (human cleric) and Edge (tiefling rogue)

2011-12-05T23:24:00.001Z

Like most parties, we have a rogue and a cleric. Our rogue is a tiefling (supposedly, since he doesn't actually show any quasi-demonic abilities or traits) who specialized in knife-throwing, and the cleric is a human optimized for destroying the undead. Like, literally, we'd walk into a room filled with skeletons, he'd flash his holy symbol and boom. Everything's dead. The guy playing the cleric recently left the group due to the amount of stuff he's been doing, so that's gonna make things a little more deadly. We use my pony to detect when there are undead stalking us.

One more character to go now!

Tsar'goth Nou'ara, Half-Orc

2011-11-28T16:26:00.000Z

Tsar'goth is one part team muscle, one part divine warrior. He's our paladin, and despite the half-orcness and the black armor, he serves Iomedae, the good goddess of Justice and Courage (her Greyhawk D&D equivalent would be Heironeous), and comes from the same temple our cleric. His thing is that his face is always in shadow from either his helmet of his hood, so nobody actually knows exactly what his face looks like, but we're banking he's either exceptionally ugly or mindblowingly beautiful.

Half Orcs are one of the core races of D&D, despite certain implications regarding to the conception of the creature. People normally play them as barbarians, since it fits so well, but I really like to see exceptions.

He's like 7ft tall, so Spackle quite often hitches rides on his shoulders to look around further or just because. One time we were looking for this woman that'd gotten lost in a moor and we had to roll Stealth checks to avoid being noticed by an interdimensional teleporting spider with a woman's face (I love this game). I scored a 30 on my roll, so I like to think that the spider didn't get a good look at me and thought Spackle was a tuft of blue feathers on Tsar'goth's helmet.

Also he's got a halo because Spackle is in the habit of casting light on his helmet whenever we need a light source. Why? Becuase she done gots herself a sense of theatrics, that's why.

Aaaaand with this one I'm totally back on schedule in terms of weeks skipped. Let's see how long this who being on schedule thing lasts.

Owlbear by Tara Helfer

2011-11-27T23:12:00.001Z

I'm gonna be doing some work for an project called 72 Demons. A collection of artists will each be doing one of the demons features in Ars Goetia, a 17th century grimoire. The head of this project, Tara Helfer, offered to do an art trade, where I do a header for her blog and she submits a monster for mine. Well, I haven't gotten around to my side of the deal yet, but she certainly has. She even prepared the blurb for me.

Owlbears are probably the crossbred creation of a demented wizard; given the lethality of this creation, it is quite likely that the wizard who created them is no longer alive. Owlbears are vicious, ravenous, aggressive, and evil tempered at all times. Owlbears are a cross between a giant owl and a bear. They are covered with a thick coat of feathers and fur, brown-black to yellow-brown in color. The 8-foot-tall males, which weigh between 1,300 and 1,500 pounds, are darker colored. The beaks of these creatures are yellow to ivory and their terrifying eyes are red-rimmed. Owlbears speak their own language, which consists of very loud screeches of varying length and pitch.
An owlbear's main weakness is also its greatest strength -- its ferocity. Because owlbears are so bad-tempered, they stop at nothing to kill a target. It is not difficult to trick an owlbear into hurling itself off a cliff or into a trap, provided you can find one.

The owlbear walks a line between the whimsical and the most fearsome beasts. Art featuring the owlbear tends to split in two different directions. Apart from the big, bad and bloodthirsty, there's a tendency to draw the owlbear as an awkward and misunderstood creature - pretty embarrassing for a killer. And why not? The owlbear doesn't make a lot of sense in terms of evolution and is excessively armed for a forest predator, making it my favorite d&d monster.
I wanted to draw the owlbear with a more flexible, feathery form rather than a bear's. While it's known for it's deadly "hug", I imagine the face-full of beak following would be much worse.

Also, my kobold illustration was used in a website called Delvers, where the 2e campaign stories of guy, his girlfriend and her two itty girls are collected.

Cassimara Raventhorn, Dhampir

2011-11-20T12:07:00.001Z

Cassimara is the archer of our team, with an unusual combination of classes (ranger/rogue/inquisitor, I think). She hunts for undead with our team. What makes her unusual is that she's a dhampir, i.e. her dad was a vampire. Our team cleric is an "expert" undead killer who didn't notice this until she revealed it to us like three sessions into the game. It makes for an unusual team member since our cleric is pretty prone to accidentally hurting her with her energy channels, and always has to give her a heads up before he starts blasting things.

For healing, the first part of our adventure was pretty useful. We got these things called haunt siphons that are used to trap ghosts (think the traps for Ghostbusters). So we've got these bottles filled with unfortunate souls that she sometimes uncorks when she needs a little pick-me-up. She's never shown the whole "bloodlust" thing that dhampir are occasionally supposed to have, but I guess eating souls balances it out.

The closest thing to a dhampir in D&D is the Half-Vampire template, which is still a little bit annoying because of level adjustment things. D&D is rife with templates. I think Dragon magazine had a special issue dedicated to various templates for the offspring of the living and dead. Paizo did the Dhampir race, a much less powerful version of the Half-Vampire, so that you can play them from the get-go.

Spackle Thrush, Gnome

2011-11-13T16:43:00.002Z

Spackle Thrush is a travelling juggler/joker in Ustalav, and friend of the now deceased Professor Lorrimer. She's still a young gnome, but her race is naturally inclined to travelling and seeking thrills the second they reach adulthood. She's not a combatant and is a firm believer that if you're nice to people, they'll be nice to you.

Spackle Thrush is my gnome bard for the current game I'm playing. Technically this is cheating for the Dungeons and Drawings blog, since it's a Pathfinder game. But Pathfinder is also known as D&D 3.75 on the internet, so I'm gonna let it count. I normally play super serious characters, so I decided to play a really comical, super friendly character. Maybe not such a good choice, since we're playing the Carrion Crown adventure path, which is supposed to be horror.

I really like the gnomes in Pathfinder. The problem I found with gnomes in classic D&D was that they weren't much different from halflings. They were both quirky short races, with halflings being a little more sneaky and gnomes being a little more magical. In Pathfinder, they definitely made gnomes their own thing; they're former fairies that got stuck in the mortal world. I'm not sure if Wizards did a similar thing to gnomes in 4th edition, but I know they removed them from the core player races (they've since been added again).

My favourite things about Pathfinder gnomes is that they're essentially immortal. They don't die of old age, but of boredom. Literally. They have something called The Bleaching, which means that if they don't regularly experience fantastic and exciting stuff, they begin to lose their colour and perky personalities until they fade away. Boredom is to gnomes what heart disease is to humans.

Rat Swarm

2011-11-11T17:23:00.003Z

Buck moves swiftly through the dark forest, using the light of a conjured lantern as his guide. The wisps dance around him, expectantly, as he canters away. He can scarecely see in front of him, as the pale aura of his light spell is met abruptly by darkness. With this handicap, he's unable to stop himself from tripping over the edge of a rise and falling into a river. Only the river is warm, soft and squirming. In the dying sputter of his conjured light, he sees a thousand gleaming eyes of a thousand squealing rats, who at his intrusion rise over him as a diseased, scratching tide.

The reponse to the very late Halloween Poll, "psychological horror". In retrospect, not such a smart option to give, since a sword and sorcery game doesn't really lend itself that well to psychological aspects.

Rat swarms are kinda psychological, right? If you're afraid of rats?

Will O Wisp

2011-11-07T08:54:00.003Z

Before being allowed out of the Hybsil's home forest, Buck is taken away, blindfolded. When released he finds himself in a dark glade, alone. It's night, and the trees, the bushes and the stream are all black and grey in the starlight. As he looks around, he finds himself surrounded by small lights, which bob around him with interest and as his panic swells, so do they.

Oy, sorry about being so late these past few weeks. Anyway, this is the reponse to the Buck poll for what test he should be put through before leaving (answer: test of courage).

The Will O Wisp is a creature of English folklore. They were little lights, like distant lanterns that would appear in swamps and maliciously lure lost travellers to dangerous terrain. Now we know that Will O Wisp is actually just swamp gas, which is just a combination of chemicals that sometimes becomes incandescent in swamps.

In D&D, they're still monsters though. They're pretty minor as things go, being able to do little more than go invisible, shock if you get close. But they're still tough to deal with, since they're pretty strong, invulnerable to most forms of magic, and are difficult to hit due to their size and luminous nature. They hang around dangerous or disorienting areas, because they feed on fear.

Celestial Fire Beetle

2011-10-16T23:14:00.006+01:00

Buck has recently completed his training as a sorcerer. One of his favoured spells is a simple monster summoning spell, which he used to summon creatures from the good dimensions beyond ours.

First of all, Dungeons and Drawings now has an official Facebook page! So all you non-blogger using people that come here, you can follow us there for updates.

Celestial creatures are the subjects of a simple template. When you use a summon monster spell, you summon creatures from either a good plane (celestial) or an evil plane (fiendish), which proceed to fight for you. Druids and rangers have a similar spell called summon nature's ally, which works exactly as the sorcerer-wizard equivalent except that the creature summon is always a mundane animal.

It was a bit of a stuggle finding an appropriate creature to draw. In most of the results, I could think up of a mentor for Buck, but for some reason found it harder with the arcane savant result. So I looked at the summon spell and picked one of the listed creatures that looked interesting. Sadly, fire beetles don't actually breathe fire. They're called that because they have bioluminescent glands.

Hybsil

2011-10-10T08:51:00.004+01:00

You are Buck the Hybsil, a member of a small deer-bodied race of fey. Although you'd normally live in wild seclusion, like the rest of your kind, you've recently come to a decision to go out into the world and begin a career as an adventurer.

The winner of the last poll was a male from a small and shunned race. Well, I guess I've slightly twisted the meaning of the word "shunned". Hybsils, who stand at 3 feet from hoof to horn, live in self-imposed exile, as most fey creatures do. This is also partially to do with the fact that poachers will sometimes track them down to take their antlers, since wizards want them as a magical ingredient. Shed antlers don't count, so hybsils have to deal with people trying to take their antlers, and also a good chunk of their scalp.

Trying something new with the polls. Story mode! Vote to determine which class he is.

DRAGON MONTH: Tiamat, Mother of Evil Dragons

2011-10-02T22:34:00.008+01:00

Tiamat is one of the most iconic members of the Greyhawk pantheon. Although only a minor goddess, she's heavily involved in the mortal world, and in her home plane in the Baator. All evil dragons keep shrines to her, in rooms separate from their treasures so she won't reach through and take their hoard. Good dragons respect her (warily). She's a vengeful creature and concerned only with her survival and that of her progeny. Her enemies include most good deities, with special regards to Bahamut, the Platinum Dragon. She sleeps in a mountain of demonic skulls and guards the borders between Avernus and Dis, attended by five ancient dragon servants.

Even people who aren't familiar with games might've heard of Tiamat. She's a common enemy in the Dragonlance books and was one of the main baddies in the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon.

First of all, I'd like to apologize for being so late with this. I've been working really hard for the past few months on some animation for a film, A Liar's Autobiography, a documentary about Graham Chapman of Monty Python fame. While it's been super awesome to be working on a film, doing character animation (basically exactly what I want to do), it leaves me absolutely exhausted when the weekend comes around.

Joe's already mentioned that he doesn't intend to return to Dungeons & Drawings on a regular basis due to other projects he wants to work on. We started this blog just over a year ago with the intent of it being a weekly drawing exercise while we looked for work: pick a monster, draw it, avoid getting rusty. With the work he and I have been getting it's been harder to keep up with the blog. So, for now, Joe's called it quits. Not me, though. I'm still too obsessive over this game to stop.

I'll start putting up the poll again so you guys can help me pick the next monster and I'll keep doing my weekly thing.

DRAGON MONTH: Bahamut, God of All Good Dragonkind

2011-09-25T20:35:00.003+01:00

It is said by some that Bahamut was once a mortal dragon who by strength of will and virtue of deed ascended long ago to the ranks of the gods (a transformation which is not entirely unique - extremely old or formidable dragons have been known to reach a state of near-godhood). Others believe he is part of some grander creation myth, including the legendary rivalry with his god-sister, Tiamat, mother of all evil dragons. Whatever myth you indulge in, Bahamut is famed for his great power and kindness. He ferociously (almost tyrannically) lays waste to evildoers, and will be moved to action by the plight of the very smallest, slightest creature in distress.

We're almost at the end of our Dragon Month now (I already did the joke about it lasting for like three months so I'll just apologise for the lateness at this stage) and it's been an enjoyable way of commemorating having run the blog for a whole 100 posts! We've gotten a really great following for Dungeons & Drawings, a large portion of which is thanks to other people - friends, family, followers in general - linking us elsewhere and telling people about us and stuff. So thanks, to everyone!

As you probably realised, we've both been finding it difficult to keep posting every week - both our jobs have been really time-consuming of late, I've been drawing a comic book for someone which will be published next April and Blanca's been doing drawn animation for a film that's hopefully going to see some kind of nation-wide release, at least in the UK where we live. Basically all is definitely well (at least for the time being, haha), which is great because we have the priviledge of getting to do what we enjoy in the midst of a pretty shaky financial environment.

Anyway, if you're still with me after the rambling: I'm not going to be posting regularly with Dungeons & Drawings any more. This isn't a vague "I need more spare time in general" kinda thing, I'm at point right now where I want to devote time to another project (writing a comic of my own) and I feel like if I take the time I was spending on D&D and put it all into the production of this comic I could really get something great going. Blanca will still be posting weekly (and hopefully I'll be able to come back for future guest weeks!) but this is it for my regular contributions. It's been fun!

Obviously gonna plug my website at joe-sparrow.com (available for drawings, cartoons, barmitzvahs, that sort of thing) and my slightly more lazily-kept blog at torpordust.blogspot.com and my deviantart. Hope the blog continues to flourish and proliferate in my (relative) absence!

DRAGON MONTH: Hidecarved Dragon

2011-09-03T13:30:00.005+01:00

The Hidecarved are an ancient order of dragons and half-dragons devoted to preserving law and order. Equivalent perhaps to monks of other races, they gather into small clans or groups called "lauths" of around four or five, and take it upon themselves to keep the peace in a certain area. Their most distinctive feature is their namesake, the mysterious runes that are scored, dark and deep, into their scaly skin. These markings are not merely aesthetic; the technique required to create them is by necessity a cruel and painful procedure, limiting the order to all but the toughest dragons. The markings themselves have been passed down over long eons - powerful magic runes of protection that, once the dragon is fully trained - render it near invulnerable to conventional weapons and magicks.

Dragon Month continues! We had a sort of impromptu hiatus mostly centered around a short stay in spain with Blanca's family. As it stands, Dragon Month is going to be about 2 1/2 months long. Maybe dragons just experience time at a slower rate to us poor, toiling humans?

"Hidecarved" is a Dragon prestige class in the Draconomicon book which I quite like. Believe it or not, D&D is more than able to let you play as one of these scaled blighters (although, as with any supernatural races that are inherently stronger than humans, you're generally going to be taking some sort of level penalty to even you out with everyone else. you little Mary Sue, you), and there are a host of options for you if you want to specialise which specific kind of gigantic invincible firebreathing magic creature you would like to be. You'll certainly be having fun with the Hidecarved - their speciality is obviously toughness, so by later levels magic and weapons will literally be bouncing off you.

DRAGON MONTH: Yu Lung (Carp Dragon)

2011-09-03T13:16:00.004+01:00

Yu Lungs, otherwise known at Carp Dragons are the infant form Oriental dragons. They're born in rivers, lakes and ponds, and live in mud palaces of their own making. They're the least impressive, weak and least intelligent of these dragons, and their only magical talent is mild telepathy. They never grow larger than a man. After a hundred years they transform with a thunderclap, entering one of many adult forms available to them.

Joe's already written apologies for our delay, but I feel I should also extend them.

Anyway, trying NOT to do one of the more classic dragons from the manuals. This one was fun. I especially enjoyed covering my eyes so I wouldn't look at the illustration in the book so I wouldn't be at all influenced by it. Decided to go for a bit of a koi look with this.

DRAGON MONTH: Black Dragon

2011-08-15T21:48:00.005+01:00

Black dragons are the most cruel-tempered of the chromatic dragons. Where blue dragons are vain, reds are tyrannical, greens are two-faced and whites are primal, blacks are petty. They despise all beautiful things. These dragons are of corpse-like apperance, growing more and more skeletal with age, and live in fetid swamps. They surround themselves in darkness, slime and putrefaction. The meat they eat is of creatures they've eaten and allowed to rot in the stinking pools of their undewater homes. Black dragons are ambushers; their chosen homes have too many trees for flight, and its easier to lie in the cool mud and wait for some hapless victim to walk by.

Tried to do something a little bit more unusual with this dragon. I ended up taking a lot of influence from Oceanic and Inuit masks.

DRAGON MONTH: Sunwyrm

2011-08-12T14:51:00.006+01:00

The Sunwyrm is one of the less common species of dragon, falling neither into the chromatic or metallic families. Anatomically, it is markedly unusual - its adult form is much smaller than your average dragon, though still twice the size of a man. It also possesses a double set of forelimbs and back legs, with makes it no pushover in physical combat. Most notably, several parts of a Sunwyrm's body can be made to glow with a blinding light, in particular a large globe at the end of the creature's tail and its outstretched wing membranes. In many cases this will blind a potential foe outright, but even more amazingly the creature can actually transform its entire body into a mass of pure, incandescent energy, becoming incorporeal and able to pass through solid matter. Creatures who the Sunwyrm pass through in this way are not harmed, however, so the creature will more often use this form to escape. Sunwyrms commonly nest incorporeally within desert sand dunes, and take to the sky by day to hide within the blinding sunlight and ambush prey from above.

Our third Dragon Week submission! I feel like I'm using a lot of yellow, lately. I'm gonna redraw the wing on this one so you can actually see the body a little better, but we've been pretty slack on updates lately so I thought I'd upload this for now.

DRAGON MONTH: Green Dragon

2011-08-04T22:45:00.008+01:00

Green Dragons are your fairly classic creatures: they're huge, they live in forests, they eat faeires and elves and other good creatures. Out of the five chromatic dragons, the Greens are one of the two lawful species (the other being Blue). However, unlike their Blue cousins, Green Dragons aren't creatures of honour. Be wary of them. Though they pride themselves on appearing civil and being masters of the spoken word, this is a paper-thin disguise. Green dragons are jealous, covetous creatures. Their words mask insults and their promises are broken when their mood sours, and you'll find yourself burnt from the inside out by their chlorine breath.

My contribution to DRAGON MONTH, ladies and gents. Behold our attempts to these creatures interesting again, since Smaug cemented the scaly lizard look. Admittedly, I'm not off to the best start with the whole "let's make this original" thing. I'll try something weirder with my next dragon. With this one I ended up trying the pixelly-style thing, which is a lot harder that I'd originally anticipated.

I've started a special tagging method over at Reference Reference. Now you can look at specific images that served as guides for the Green Dragon.

DRAGON MONTH: Gold Dragon

2011-08-01T11:54:00.005+01:00

Moreso than any of their metallic brethren, Gold Dragons are creatures of utmost law and virtue. They are known to be kind and fantastically intellgent, devoting much of their attention to righting wrongs and helping the weak. Gold Dragons appear to take at times an almost parental role when dealing with lesser creatures, whether lending a helping wing to a besieged adventurer or scolding an opportunistic treasure-thief.

To celebrate our 100th post (it's kind of a joint thing with the blog's first year anniversary) this fair month of August is going to be Dragon Month. Yes, you may have noticed a conspicuous absence of fantasy's bescaled poster boys from our pages so far - early on we decided to hold off from illustrating them until we reached post number 100.

If the idea of this blog is to challenge peoples' perception of what standard fantasy art should look like, then dragons are pretty high on the hit-list of "stuff to challenge". Especially on the internet, dragons must be some of the most popular and often-drawn fantasy creatures ever, and a quick search on somewhere like Deviantart will give you a good cross-section of the visual tropes they tend to subscribe to. Seriously, go look at it. See that? That's what we're gonna try to avoid. Not because it's bad, but because being weird and different makes us feel special. ;_;

Stay tuned for the rest of Dragon Month and see if you like it!

Wee Jas, Goddess of Death and Magic

2011-07-25T00:04:00.003+01:00

Wee Jas, the Witch Goddess, occupies a unique position in the magical pantheon of deities and demigods. She dwells in blood, death and magic, but is not inherently evil. Her followers and clerics, most of them necromancers and powerful wizards, are some of the most dangerous men (and women) alive (and dead). She is distinguished from other gods of death such as Nerull (Foe of all Good and Enemy of Life) by the fact that she venerates death as an inevitability, rather than something to be cheated or dealt out wantonly. The dead are taught to be respected and remembered, that the living may be treated the same way in turn when their time comes. Her alignment is Lawful Neutral, and her favoured weapon is the dagger.

To commemorate this blog's continual maintanance for ONE WHOLE YEAR (!), this weeks' "creatures" (can we call them that?) are actually Gods from the main D&D pantheon. Blanca and I have illustrated gods that are on pretty differing ends of the spectrum so it's interesting to see how they've turned out.

This depiction of Wee Jas is a little unusual if you've ever seen any literature on her, which mostly describes her as a beautiful, red-headed woman with skull-themed jewelery. I'm not a fan of depicting gods as visually identical to humans, though, they need to be a little more abstract or symbolic to pack more of a punch. This actually affects pretty much all of the gods as listed in the Deities & Demigods book - most of them are illustrated in the same manner you'd draw an ordinary PC; you might not even get that they were deities if you weren't told so. In contrast, there's this one little icon of Wee Jas in the Player's Handbook that I really like - it has the look of a skull, but it also has these weird flame/tendril/ribbon things that seem to grow out of it, getting this combination of magic-plus-death that for me sums up the goddess. I based my design on that, trying to depict the Ruby Sorceress in a flayed, corpse-like body, roiling in gory magic, deep in her home dimension of Acheron.

Pelor, The Shining One

2011-07-24T23:55:00.008+01:00

Pelor is a top god of the Greyhawk pantheon. His followers are many; he is creator of all things good, god of healing, and he who feels the sun rise. He lives in a golden citadel in Elysium. The fortress is surrounded by beautiful fields, farms and orchards, and is inhabited by various war-like angels and peaceful saints.

It's a rare thing for a religion not to have the Sun as one of their main gods. Even the most primitive civilizations could tell that life is sustained by that big ball of fire in the sky (except for the Greeks it seems, who made their main god king of thunderstorms).

I'm similar to Joe's frame of mind in that I don't think divine beings should always be shown as human. Deities and Demigods kinda disappoints me from an artistic point of view, since the gods just don't look that interesting. Pelor's some old guy in golden robes, Kord's a buff barbarian, Olidammara's a bard, etc... They don't look very divine.

I was always quite fond of old myths, where the reason the gods looked the way they do to us it because their true divine form is so dazzling that it can kill you. The Zeus and Semele is the most famous example. I'm pretty certain I came across a Hindu myth with a similar thing, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Bible had a couple of instances too. Well, I think the whole dazzling true form deal is pretty apt for a the god of that thing that you should never look directly into.

HAPPY ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY, DUNGEONS & DRAWINGS.

Necropolitan

2011-07-17T11:48:00.003+01:00

When you reach the tower where the princess is held captive, you find a withered woman dressed in silks, gems and a delicately coiffed wig. Lipstick would do little to emphasize something that's long since shrunken back so close to the skull. And what would eyeliner do to eyes already so shadowed within such dark eyesockets? You'd be horrified, but your mission was to rescue the princess of Nocturnus, city of the undead.

Necropolitans were a new player race introduced in the horror-themed Libris Mortis. The idea with them is that you asked already-existing necropolitans for permission to join their numbers. If they accepted you, you go through a long and painful process where life energy is drained through your body and is replaced with negative energy. Unlike, say, a lich, another intelligent undead whose own willing transformation from living to dead involves concentrated evil, necropolitans aren't necessarily members of the dark side.

The book kinda implies that they're just really reserved, serious scholars who'd prefer to be left alone by anyone who thinks the undead are shambling abominations.

Terror Bird

2011-07-09T16:26:00.003+01:00

Terror Birds are apex predators. They're tall, flightless animals with long, strong necks and large, hard beaks that can cut through flesh. Their small, atrophied wings bear two small useless claws. They run as fast as horses and hunt with the cunning of wolves.

For a creature with such a dramatic name, Terror Birds are actually pretty benign. In fact, this creature and its name, is an actual prehistoric creature that lived in the Miocene period (23 to 5 million years ago). Their scientific name is Phorusrhacidae and are thought to be the ancestors of Seriemas birds, something a little smaller and less lethal.

If you think these guys are goofy, just put a little though into it. These are extremely fast creatures, up to 3 metres tall (10 feet). The smallest of the species was about 1 metre (a little over 3 feet). They're basically like ostriches. You know how scary ostriches can be? Well, imagine if they actually wanted to eat you.

A nice monster if you want to use it in a prehistoric campaign setting.

Gloom

2011-07-03T02:07:00.005+01:00

The saying goes: "If you want someone dead, you hire a killer... if you want someone dead, you hire a Gloom".

Monstrous assassins of the highest caliber, Glooms silently do the bidding of whomever happens to command them. Never armed with more than a cruel dagger, these faceless creatures demonstrate cold-blooded murder with such a clarity of form that it could be called artful. Nothing is known of a Gloom's expected payment (they certainly have no use for gold, or trinkets, or power) but once the transaction is carried out the demise of the victim is certain.

Again, the more observant of our viewers will have noticed my conspicuous abscence from these pages for the last few weeks (to which a number of contributants could be named) but rest assured, I'll be trying my hardest again. This one was obviously a little rushed, but hopefully I'll be able to make more time in the future.

Glooms are from the Epic Level Handbook, which at first seems a little weird given that they don't have much in the way of lore or other bells and whistles - they're literally just an incredibly scary CR 25 creature armed with a knife and some rudimentary (for ELH monsters) special abilites. But (as with a lot of my favourites) it's their simplicity that makes them interesting. Where do they come from? Why do they do what they do? I imagine them as this forbidden "last resort" for when royals or high-level spellcasters who absolutely, positively, have to have someone dead. Like, the kind of deal you wouldn't want to admit to.

Wendigo

2011-07-02T11:18:00.003+01:00

The Wendigo is a malevolent spirit of the cold wastes, driven by purely by hunger. It has no feet, and leaves no tracks on the ground. Sometimes its body turns misty and can't be seen but out of the corner of your eye. You're more likely to hear him that see him, his gibbering laughter sweeping across the empty landscape like with.

So the winner of last week's poll was Middle Eastern / Indian monsters and North American monsters, with an equal amount of votes. I decided to pick North American monsters, since they're under-represented in modern fantasy culture outside the odd shaman, thunderbird and, of course, Wendigo.

Fun fact! Apparently the word Wendigo comes from the proto-Algonquian "wintekowa", possibly meaning "owl". At least according to the internet. Maybe they were freaked out by the hooting of owls at night? Anyway, that's why I decided to give the Wendigo a more rounded head instead of something wolfy or deer-like, like a lot of modern fantasy does.

I decided to play on the description in the D&D books that says they have a Corner of the Eye ability. Whenever a wendigo Wind Walks, they can never been looked at directly, always seeming to appear just out of your field of vision. This was pretty tricky, and I decided to try to employ the Hidden Face illusion trick. I'm not sure how well it worked though, so you guys'll have to tell me.

Man, I'm late this week.

Did a little bit more work with the tags this past week. Monsters are now also orginized by alignment (chaotic, lawful, evil, good, neutral) and whether they're template creatures.

Yakfolk

2011-06-22T10:46:00.007+01:00

Yakfolk are a race of heavy-furred bovine men who make their homes in the beautiful verdant valleys between mountain peaks. They stand smaller than a minotaur, but are much more civilized than their brutish counterparts. They dress in fine silks and decorate their horns with silver and tassles. Despite their utopian towns and culture, Yakfolk are brutal slavers and each member of their race usually has many human, elven and dwarf slaves. They're learned in magical arts, with the innate abilities to fuse their bodies with that of another humanoid creature and to control evil genies. Their signature weapons are the falchion and the magical staff.

The winner for last week's poll was high fantasy and diplomatic mission. Originally I was going to do the drow, but matriarchal black elves that live underground and worship an evil spider goddess aren't high fantasy enough. Genie-commanding, body-melding cow-men are high fantasy enough. As for diplomatic mission, you'd probably want to make some sort of treaty with them. I would. Either that or run away.

Special thanks to Joe with helping me figure out an interesting way to set up the layout and style of this image.

Also I think I'm done with all the blend shapes for my goblin. Currently working on the tongue and figuring out how to set up some controls.

Kenku

2011-06-16T11:36:00.006+01:00

The Kenku are a race of flightless corvid humanoids that live in cities. They're of evil disposition and are especially prone to theft, which they execute in large groups. The Kenkus small size, ability to mimic sounds and strong sense of cooperation means they're often contracted as thieves, spies and assassins by those who'd rather not implicate themselves in that sort of crime.

I consider kenku in the same family as kobolds and goblins: absurd, cute, pathetic little creatures that are somehow supposed to imply a threat. They're a more dishonorable version of the tengu, a crow-man creature of Japanese mythology known for their mastery of the sword. The Oriental Adventures book has the more faithful version of the monster.

The winner of the poll was city monsters.I'm really late this week because I keep working on the goblin stuff instead. I finished modelling the character itself and all his clothing and have started working on the skeleton. I've also bee working on the blend shapes for his head, which is really fun. I'm going to have to figure out how to stop the teeth from popping out of the cheeks when the face morphs.

Edit: Improved the image some with colours, shading and floury footprints.

Domovoi

2011-06-06T11:58:00.006+01:00

Domovoi are fey of the helpful variety. They're normally found near places of civilized activity, homes or campsites. In exchange from some scraps and maybe some milk, these hairy little men will keep your fires live and warm. They're slippery creatures, and prefer not to be seen by the people they're helping. Even if you got your hands on one you'd find it difficult to keep a grip on them; they're covered in a fine layer of soot and ash, making it difficult to keep a grip on them.

"...wants to help me" was the winner for last week's poll. It was pretty close for a while, since "wants to eat me", "is three times bigger than me", "is tiny" and "is surrounded by its minions" where all tied with four votes each before the winner got an extra two clicks. I'd actually found a creature that could fit all four categories. Oh well.

Domovoi are creatures of Russian/Slavic folklore (as if you couldn't tell). They have a slightly more malevolent counterpart called the Dvorovoi. These other little men were in charge of barns and livestock, but could make your cows sick if they were in a bad mood.

The poll for this week is terrains. You can select multiple answers in this one.

Also, more work on the goblin. A friend helped me out by making some suggestions on the hand and clothes modelling. He's also now got teeth. Further crits would be appreciated. I'm probably going to start trying to figure out how to do blend shapes soon and that's the kind of thing where I need to be 100% certain on the model itself.

Mercane

2011-05-31T16:08:00.004+01:00

Mercanes are the ultimate salesmen of the universe. They travel across dimensions followed by their entourage of bodyguards and train of merchandise, ready to buy and sell. As completely neutral creatures, they're free to wander where they please. You can find them anywhere from the mortal plane, to the Heavens, to the Abyss.

The winner for last week's which type the monster should be was the outsider. Not exactly surprising, since they're one of the groups with consistently interesting-looking creatures.

The manual describes these creatures as blue-skinned with multi-jointed fingers. Let me tell you, it was really difficult not to make him look like a certain fella from The Thief and the Cobbler.

New poll this week. Hoping to make a regular thing out of this. There's too many cool monsters to pick from.

Xac-Yij

2011-05-24T16:48:00.006+01:00

Energons are a srare and elusive species. They are born from the essence of various planes, and take the form of jellyfish-like balls of elemental energy. Energons are likely to be found hovering near dimensional portals, as they're attracted to its magical energy, and curious about what's on the other side. The Xac-Yij is the energon that comes from the Ever-Changing Chaos of Limbo, and is powered by corrosive acid. All energons are largely harmelss, being incorporeal creatures and possessing no physical strength, but they each have a preferred battle plan should they have to fight. The Xac-Yij prefers attacking the weaker, smaller creatures, and flee from bigger foes.

I've done a little more work on that goblin model from last week. I'm currently learning how to do some basic rigging in this Maya course, so hopefully I should be able to animate something with it. I'm also trying to decide whether I should model the clothes as a seperate object or as part of the monster. Any 3D people out there with opinions?

Also, check out the poll in the top right corner. Go click on it.

Primal Air Elemental

2011-05-16T15:22:00.007+01:00

These are the kings of air elementals and one of the more powerful monsters. Their amorphous soft bodies make them largely immune to many spells and damage from all but the most powerful weapons. As neutral creatures, they have no destructive urges, but their low intelligence means that they can easily be tricked.

Oh elementals. You're so difficult to make interesting because you're literally piles of stuff.

Edit: Modelling a goblin in three-dee, y'all.

Living Blasphemy

2011-05-10T11:02:00.013+01:00

Many mysteries surrond the true nature of magic, despite the devotion of extensive resources to its study. One such mystery has been observed to occur in circumstances where high-level spellcasters have (perhaps carelessly) overextended their powers in the casting of a particularly potent spell; over time, the spell can develop in complexity and potency, divorcing itself entirely from its caster and eventually gaining a sort of sentience of its own.

One spell which is lamentably capable of this transformation is the Blasphemy curse. A seventh-level spell favoured by clerics of dark deities such as Nerull or Vecna, Blasphemy affects an area, afflicting all within its boundaries with conditions ranging from dizzied confusion to paralysis or painful death. In the case we see here, a particularly powerful instance of the spell has become sentient, appearing as a twisting, globular pillar of darkness, creeping towards you. Despite its sentience the creature is devoid of any proper intelligence, desiring only death and pain - whoever is struck by its roiling branches suffers the full extent of the spell's original effects.

Sorry for all the delayed posts from me lately, work has been pretty busy for the last few weeks (in addition to me being sort of ill and my computer packing in again). Oh well! I am attempting to catch up.

I do like the idea of sentient spells, I think it's an idea worth applying to more magical abilities. Living Cone of Cold, anyone? I sort of imagine it would be quite cute. Although, if you're feeling brave there are some slightly more epic opportunities if you know where to look.

Wang-Liang

2011-05-10T11:02:00.012+01:00

The Wang-Liang are a race of mountain and forest dwelling giants. They used to be one of the dominant races, but that position has been usurped by the human population. As spirit-like creatures, they have a number of invisibility and shape-shifting powers, which they could easily use to dupe humans. Despite their inherent evil and envy of this younger race, they are very honorable creatures.

Oh Oriental Adventures, you are such an interesting setting. I wish to play a campaign in your world.

The Wang-Liang is one of the weakest of the giant race (CR 4), out of all the giants in the D&D books. The weakest "true" giants, as from the monster manual, are CR 9, which means that you have to be pretty high level to be able to take one on. I guess ogres are CR 3, but they're literally just dim-witted monstrous men that beat you with clubs.

Wang-Liang have a lot more flavour-stuff going on with them. They have the aforementioned spell-like abilities, and they also have a high intelligence score (compare the ogre's 6 to the wang-liangs 16. For the reader's not familiar with these numbers, humans only get an average of 10 for intelligence score). Their signature weapons are double-ended bladed staffs, but then they also have retractable claws.

I'm not really sure where wang-liangs come from as a concept. Folklore, especially oriental folklore, is fraught with shape-shifting spirits and demons. I couldn't find a creature out there that had the same name as the wang-liang, so I can only guess that these are based on some kinda especially tricky oni.

Gilin, Invisible Blade

2011-05-02T12:52:00.005+01:00

Invisible Blades are unusual fighters (usually of some confidence or flair) who see that the key to success in combat is not always through big muscles, weapons or spells. Wielding only knives and other small, unassuming weapons, an Invisible Blade relishes being underestimated. He boldly takes on foes, unarmoured, eager to take advantage of their overconfidence, then feints to create an opening and guts them before they have a chance to react.

A more common class choice for the smaller, nimbler races, this prestige class (a class only useable when certain skill conditions have been met) seems to have been built to give Rogues the opportunity for a more in-your-face play style. To the common thug, a dagger obviously does a lot less damage than a longsword - however, Rogues who attack their opponents from behind or catch them off guard get a huge "sneak attack" bonus (hahaha). Invisible Blades, as well as being able to add their intelligence bonus to their AC (to help them out with the whole "not wearing armour" thing) get a better feint, which essentially allows them to sneak attack people from the front.

I'm a huge fan of the idea of classes not being cut-and-paste character types - obviously generalising, whilst fairly safe at first, gets boring quickly. I love prestige classes because they help you specialise your character into a real niche. Not all rogues are the same - a player might want to roll a Rogue who can sneak around like a ninja, or who can fight using spectacular acrobatics, or uses his fists like a street brawler; prestige classes give you further bonuses to help you make those play styles viable. Blanca once wrote a really cool NPC Rogue who was dead shot with a bow (ranged sneak attack, anyone? okay okay enough with the tf2 metaphors). So, yeah. If you like your rogues showoffish and bluffy, the Invisible Blade might be for you.

Xylia Glass, Alienist

2011-05-01T18:45:00.005+01:00

Alienists are wizards and sorcerers who have delved to deep into the study of aberrations and the chaotic powers of the Far Realm. They follow their science with religious zeal, slowly descending into insanity and physical mutation as they chase immortality and trascendence of normal dimensions. Even the creatures they summon with their spells are of a warped, unnatural appearance.

This is a pretty good prestige class for players who don't want to sacrifice magical power for specific class abilities, the Alienist being a flavour prestige rather than a strategically sound one. As you gains levels, your character literally begins to go insane; you lose points to your Wisdom stat and take penalties to your interaction with normal people and animals. It's kind of balanced out by a handful of extra hit points and a bunch of damage redutions. But you're also crazy. That's the fun of flavour prestige classes.

And what's fantasy without a little HP Lovecraft thrown in the mix?

PS: I've started a new blog that may be useful to any artists out there. It's called Reference Reference, and I'm going to be archiving my collection of reference/inspirational images. Look at it to see some of the references I used for this week's image.

GUEST WEEK: Crypt Thing by Adam Vian

2011-04-24T21:15:00.005+01:00

The Crypt Thing is a guardian of sacred places and objects, which sits atop an ancient stone throne. It's a reanimated corpse, brought back by priests, to do away with intruders and thieves in a nonlethal manner. If it ever comes to force, the Crypt Thing will first scatter his opponents with minor teleportation magic. Despite being undead, it's not evil and can be civil with those who don't present a threat to him or his charge.

Round two of guest week comes to a close by an encore image from a previous guest, Adam Vian. He's recently put out a game he did in collaboration with Catherine Unger called From Beyond, which is quite delightful and spooky. And another game which I've always enjoyed and feel the need to bring to your attention is The Arrow Of Time (included: time travel, elemental arrows, a little soldier with a whistle for a head).

GUEST WEEK: Kuo-Toa by Jack Cunningham

2011-04-23T20:24:00.005+01:00

The Kuo-Toa are a race of malevolent amphibious humanoids living in coastal areas. They are violent and worship their own goddess, Blibdoolpoolp, "Sea Mother" in their own language, to whom they give bloody sacrifices. Their skin produces a sticky slime, giving them an edge when it comes to wrestling. Their signature weapon is a spear with a pincer at the end, which they use to immobilize large opponents.

Image given to us by Jack Cunningham, an illustrator-animator with a defined graphic style. He and Joe Bichard are responsible for the very lovely film Mars!, a film about space travel with some extra messages about our effect on the planet.

GUEST WEEK: Bog Giant by James Lancett

2011-04-22T10:29:00.004+01:00

The Bog Giant is one of the smaller members of the giant family - as their name suggests, they primarily live in swamps. Having developed some oddly amphibian characteristics appropriate for their surroundings, these creatures stalk their territory in search of large reptiles such as black dragons and crocodiles to hunt and eat. Despite being their prey and their main source of clothing, crocodiles are venerated by bog giants, and are sometimes kept as pets.

This image was drawn by yet another illustrator-animator, this one named James Lancett. He's done a really nice cover for the Puffin competition for James and The Giant Peach.

GUEST WEEK: Blackstone Gigant by Charlie Hamill

2011-04-22T10:23:00.004+01:00

The Blackstone Gigant is a gargantuan guardian of unholy temples. Created from massive blocks of dark stone by evil priests, they are usually carved in the shape of many-armed female demons. They're unlike other golems in that Blackstone Gigants have basic malignant intelligence. Her touch can turn her victims to stone, allowing her to cruelly shatter their petrified bodies to make into morbid jewellery. Should she choose not to shatter them, she can bring them back to life later on, completely under her control. Despite their massive size and cumbersome bodies, Blackstone Gigants are capable of effortless flight.

This image is brought to you by Charlie Ray Hamill. He's also an excellent photographer and a huge fan of glamorous and dangerous ladies.

Sorry about the late double-post (this was supposed to be up yesterday), but we're currently enjoying a short holiday in Spain and wifi-equipped cafés are a little harder to come by than we anticipated. Oh well!

GUEST WEEK: Ethereal Filcher by Joe Bichard

2011-04-20T22:20:00.007+01:00

The Ethereal Filcher is a mischievous creature that travels between our plane and its wispy ethereal neighbour. Truly bizarre-looking creatures (but surprisingly benign), they are the embodiment of pan-dimensional kleptomania, and will stalk people endlessly waiting for them to let their guard down, only to quickly teleport across into our world and filch their belongings. Their lairs are full of purloined goods.

Image kindly provided by by Joe Bichard, another illustrator-animator from jolly ol' Angle-land. He's one of the members of the Colour Club art collective (which includes the Joe Sparrow half of our Dungeons and Drawings team), whose current project is a selection of animated concert visuals for the musician Kidda.

GUEST WEEK: Wolf-in-Sheep's-Clothing by Third Rail Design Lab

2011-04-19T03:40:00.006+01:00

This creature appears as a tree stump with a rabbit sitting on its shorn edge. But on getting closer the stump reveals teeth and tentacles; the rabbit is just the lure it used to draw you in.

Image is provided by Third Rail Design Lab, a comic/illustrator. Yeahhhhh, this is one of those creatures that got excluded from further editions of D&D because it's just a little too silly to take seriously, even for this game. The fact that the rabbit is a part of the creature's body seals the deal. And its name doesn't really help that much because implies something a little more... something that isn't a stump with a rabbit on its head. It's still a classic though.

Paizo attempts to slightly refluff the monster in their book Misfit Monsters Redeemed by making the creature on top be the last thing it killed; which makes more sense because you kill one adventurer, then you lure the rest to you with images of him.

GUEST WEEK: Banshee by Matt Layzell

2011-04-18T22:00:00.005+01:00

The Banshee is a hideous female monster, ghostly and fearsome in apperance, always preceeded by her unholy howls. She is the spirit of a woman who in life was dominated by jealousy and hatred, and in death is consumed by envy of the living. Her wails slay all life around her.

Welcome to the first day of our second ever Guest Week. We've got some more artists for you offering up their personal interpretations of various D&D monsters. Up first is Matt Layzell, a super cool illustrator-slash-animator. His work may be better known among any English people following this blog; he and his studio Treat is responsible for the very cool Slackers Club spots on Channel 4.

Alchemical Golem

2011-04-17T20:45:00.003+01:00

Alchemical golems are constructs created by wizards with a special talent for potions. They made of several expensive and rare alchemical liquids contained within a tough membrane. These liquids, along with a trapped elemental spirit, are what makes this giant creature lumber forward. It's touch is acidic and piercing its membrane results in the corrosive liquids within spilling out, before the membrane repairs itself. An alchemical golem must cosume vats of alchemical liquids to replace those lost to physical damage.

Guest week soon, fellow watchers.

Grisgol

2011-04-17T17:27:00.005+01:00

A Grisgol is a strange construct, made haphazardly but nonetheless dangerous. Its body is comprised of a tattered mass of various magical items, loosely held together by mummy-like bandages of spell scrolls and wards. Its arm might be a sword or staff; its head an enchanted helm, or its insides a clinking stack of alchemical potions - their highly chaotic, magical nature makes them immune to most magical effects. In addition to this, the enchantments usually used to power an ordinary golem are simply too weak to bring Grisgols to life; they are usually powered by a Lich's phylactery - a small trinket such as a jewel or phial containing the soul of a dead sorcerer. This makes them doubly dangerous - not only are their physical bodies corrosive and unstable, their souls are ancient and malicious.

Our second guest week begins tomorrow! As with last time, we'll be updating with a new image every day for a whole week, involving a bunch of different artists with different styles. Check back each day for some new artsy goodness.

Kraken

2011-04-12T09:43:00.004+01:00

Krakens are gargantuan leviathans of the deep, intelligent and predatory. Mostly seen by sailors (and even then rarely) these squid-like creatures devour ships whole or drag them beneath the waves as prisoners to their underground cave-lairs, where they keep slaves to serve and feed them.

One day I'll upload one of these on time again! Remember what that was like? When I used to upload on a Sunday? That was nice. In my defence my main job as a comic book artist is sort of spilling over into the weekends and I also do a bunch of other stuff (STARCRAFT2COUGHCOUGH)

Pixelly stuff again this week, sorry if you prefer the more brushy sort of drawing. Also why am I so fond of hi-contrast colours? I guess it satisfies my inner purist. These colours make for such nice, simple hexadecimal values! #000000, #FF00FF, #0000FF, I could go on.

Displacer Beast

2011-04-10T23:24:00.003+01:00

The Displacer Beast is an alien-looking creature, with sleek fur and multiple limbs, which include an extra pair of legs and two muscular tentacles that sprout from its shoulders. It's the size of a tiger, intelligent and malicious. In addition to these already formidable assets, this creature is able to bend light around itself, causing its outline to duplicate and blur (or displace), making it difficult to hit.

The Displacer Beast is another of those classic D&D monsters. It's also one of those classic scifi monsters; this creature is lifted from the coeurl, an alien created by the science fiction writer Alfred Eton Van Vogt.

This is a pretty popular monster, mostly because it's weird and cool looking, and felines are always well-loved monsters. But in most of the images I looked up for the Displacer Beast, they were all Beast and no Displacer. When I started trying to plan this image, it became apparent why this is. It's hard to do in an interesting way, man.

Battlebriar

2011-04-03T21:08:00.006+01:00

Battlebriars are actually huge plants, magically grown by teams of druids to serve as living siege engines. Galloping along on six muscular legs, they resemble huge, knotted masses of bark and huge thorns, making attacking one in melee combat a treacherous task to say the least (to take no account of the creature's monstrous size). Often proving too wild for their creators to control, many Battlebriars now roam free in the forests of the world, killing indescriminately to feed.

Inspired a lot by horned lizards and by one of my favourite magic cards. I like how you have this stereotype of druids being peaceful hippies - I imagine one day they all just had enough of people ripping on them and thought "fuck it, let's make some CR 15 living siege weapons, that'll teach them to make fun of us". Those craaaaazy druids.

Kappa

2011-04-03T12:03:00.004+01:00

The kappa is a small amphibious creature, half turtle, half man. Though sometimes malevolent, kappas are extremely curteous beings and won't harm anyone who shows them politeness and respect. The top of their head is hollow and filled with water. When the water is tipped out of their heads, they become extremely weak and immediately dash for the nearest source of water.

This monster is brought to you by the Oriental Adventures setting and Japanese mythology. I always liked this monster, even when I first read about it in a mythology book when I was itty bitty. According to these books, the kappas' favourite food was cucumbers and a sure way to get on their good side was to give them cucumbers with your name carved into it.

Topiary Guardian

2011-03-27T12:53:00.001+01:00

The topiary guardian is a creature used by druids and noblemen as sentinels for their glades and gardens. Unlike true golems, which are purely animated by magic, topiary guardians have a summoned spirit that moves their bodies. They are able to stand perfectly still, blending perfectly among the other similarly manicured hedges. Their soft leafy bodies make them invulnerable to attacks from non-edged weapons, making arrows and clubs useless, but mean that fire is their worst enemy.

Sorry for being late with this stuff; it's been a tiring week. The reason the creature's shaped like a stag is because the job I've been working on involves me animating a stag, so I've been looking at lots of videos of bouncing deer.

Velakhut

2011-03-27T12:52:00.001+01:00

Velakhuts are the elder, stranger kin of the Kolyaruts , both members of a mysterious family of mechanical creatures known as "Inevitables". Inevitables are the very incarnation of law and order, forged in the pure heart of Mechanus and sent out as agents of balance to bring order to chaos and prevent specific occurances which might harm the natural harmony of spacetime.

Each class of inevitable is responsible for a different aspect of order - Kolyaruts punish oathbreakers, Maruts kill those who unfairly avoid death - Velakhuts are responsible for the defence of deities against those who would depose them. Inevitables are not creatues that engage in worship of any god but understand that the destruction or deposition of these divine powers would bring only chaos. Velakhuts are as such the most powerful among the Inevitables as their natural opponents are strong enough to threaten gods.

We're a week late this week, so we'll be doing a mid-week post at some point to make up. Velakhuts are pretty cool, I like them because I imagine they are from a system older and more fundamental than the gods they protect. Like, the gods will come and go, but the Velakhuts will always be there to protect them.

Harpy

2011-03-14T16:08:00.001Z

The Harpy is a demonic woman, hideously ugly. Her looks are counterbalanced by her voice, which is beautiful and alluring, capturing the wills of any who listen to it and drawing them to their deaths.

I almost went for something more bird-like, but I stopped when I realized my ideas were too close to the World of Warcraft harpies. The head of this one is still based on that of one of the ugliest birds in the world, the turkey.

Vampire

2011-03-13T11:31:00.003Z

Vampirism is a dreadful magical curse which spreads, virus-like, from one creature to another. The curse is passed onto any creature whose life is drained by an existing vampire, and only creatures of roughly human physiognomy are succeptible. When the afflicted creature dies, it rises again as a creature of the night, driven by tortuous necessity to drink the blood of the living. Vampires vary in temperament and style as much as the diverse races they hail from, but by the nature of the curse itself are predestined towards acts of evil.

Vampires are such an old and complicated myth, it's a shame that the rampant popularity they've enjoyed culturally over the last few years does little to acknowledge the weird shit that inspired them (one part of necrophilia, one part cannibalism and one part sexual predation and rape, for starters). The most well-known incarnation is probably still Béla Lugosi's, but it's a little too visually hammy for my tastes. Much scarier for me is the Max Schreck version, this scene in particular.

Sorry for the sort of sparse illustration this week, it's actually part of a poster design that I did reworked without the text. German expressionism, go!

Atropal

2011-03-06T14:40:00.001Z

Of the many deities and demigods across the planes, only a fraction of real knowledge is held. These beings, unknowably powerful, defy rational thought; they live indefinitely, apparently drawing some power from the faithful acts of their followers.

Knowledge of the creation and destruction of godly beings is thus incredibly hard to come by. One story, however, is sometimes whispered of by the eldest and most knowledgeable archmages: it is said that sometimes, when a god comes into being, some fault or flaw corrupts its manifestation and the god perishes in the instant it is born. These stillborn gods, still powerful in their own right, instantly rise as gigantic undead beings called Atropals. An abomination in the truest sense of the word, the rise of an Atropal dooms worlds.

This is the first creature we've done from the Epic Level Handbook, a fun volume that contains everything you need to make an adventure for characters at 20th level or higher (at level 20 characters pretty much become demigod superheroes). All the creatures in the ELH are really imaginative and cool, and most of them stats that would make a 5th level paladin cringe. The above creature is surrounded by a 30-foot aura that kills most creatures outright then resurrects them as undead minions a few turns later. Yipes!

and yes, it's pretty much an aborted god-fetus. sorry!

Ghost

2011-03-06T10:40:00.002Z

The halls of the dwarven kings are the sombre grave of a great civilization who met unfortunate doom. In it's great halls, there is first the quick patter of a thief's feet, followed by the wail of spirits still defending the ancient ruin.

A ghost is what's known as a "template" creature. You know how you can have a dragon, or a griffin, or an elf? Well you can also have a ghost dragon, a ghost griffin, or a ghost elf, by applying a certain set of stats to that creature. Something I like about D&D is its customizability through sheer number of templates for every situation conceivable. Because --gosh darn it-- if I want the players to fight a two-headed T. Rex that breathes acid and is made entirely out of goo, then my players will fight a two-headed T. Rex that breathes acid and is made entirely out of goo.

Those ghost were originally meant to be part of the Valkyrie image from a couple of months back, being the spirit of a dead warrior being taken to the enternal battlefields of the afterlife. But I couldn't find a way to draw the ghost that didn't take attention away from the Valkyrie herself, so he had to be scrapped.

Dryad

2011-03-03T17:39:00.002Z

Born from the branches of ancient oak trees, dryads are the protectors of forests and plantlife. They are peaceful creatures, lacking the mischievous instincts of her faerie brethren, but can become a fierce opponent when she finds her home threatened.

This image is inspired by Ivan Bilibin, a Russian illustrator best know of the images he did for the tale of Vasilisa the Beautiful. I think it's a crime that there don't seem to be any books collecting his artwork.

Odopi

2011-02-27T15:53:00.001Z

Odopii are legendary beings of chaos and evil from the Tarterian Depths of Carceri. A directionless bundle of twisted limbs, the Odopi moves constantly and inelegantly onward by rolling on its many hands, each with an ugly yellow eye in its palm. Their huge bodies can lay waste to cities in moments.

I wanted to try a more painterly style again with this one, I guess it's sort of like a cross between the Necronaut and Shivhad. What can I say, I love drawing bony arms.

Also he's supposed to be rampaging through the Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus, another planar realm based on order and lawfulness. I might work some little robot men into it to get a better sense of scale.

NB - click on the image to see it full size, the colours got kinda messed up in the blogspot thumbnail.

Bulette

2011-02-20T12:29:00.001Z

A Bulette, or land-shark, is a huge quadrupedal burrowing creature. Strong and mindless, Bulettes live simply to eat, and with such a massive body comes a notoriously resilient digestive sytem. Bulettes are true omnivores and will eat literally anything, including animals, plants, metals, even soil and rock if nothing else is available. Solitary creatures (except in certain terrifying situations where they reside with a mate) Bulettes are mercifully rare.

Back to routine! After posting the animations we're back to just static illustrations for a while (although keep your eye out for an animated .gif or something). Trying to go for a stylised Craig McCracken look here, whilst tipping my artsy hat to that other great land shark.

Frost Giant

2011-02-20T12:26:00.002Z

The Frost Giant is a massive blue-skinned humanoid that makes its lair in icy caves. They live in groups, ruled by their wisest, strongest and most evil among them, called Jarl, and served by slaves snatched from raids.

Okay, I'm going to straight-up admit that I strayed a little from the desciption in the books, becaue the books essentially describe 15-foot tall blue Vikings. Not that Vikings are bad or anything, since the Frost Giant is based on the jotunn anyway, but I just wanted to do something a little different.

I feel all rested up now from doing that big animation for the last post. Maybe I'll start a new one.

Edit: Now with alternate colors. Does anybody have a favourite version?

Lizardfolk

2011-02-13T22:34:00.001Z

The lizard-men are one of the staple creatures of fantasy, presented in D&D as the aptly-named Lizardfolk. They're a non-evil people, primitive but not savage, or at least that what the original Monster Manual indicates. Further books down the line give subraces/tribes of various lizardfolk, some with more evil abilities than other.

AND I'VE FINALLY FINISHED THIS ANIMATION WOOP

This was probably one of the more complicated characters I've animated to date. Other characters I did were a lot simpler, whereas with this one I always had to keep track of his belly ridges, number of teeth and so on.

Here, have some progress.

1) Turnaround of the monster, so I can always be aware of what details I'm missing, what proportions are wrong, what color goes where and so on. Drawn like three weeks ago.

2) Animating. Several step process because I can't just do it the smart way and not redraw the same shape a bazillion times.

Special thanks to Joe for showing me a whole lot of After Effects tips for improvements on the final render. Sounds on the film were taken from freesound and were originally created by Rhedcerulean and melarancida.

Rust Monster

2011-02-13T22:33:00.002Z

I wouldn't say it's 100% finished but I have had pretty much the most-stressful-day-that-hasn't-involved-worrying-about-money-ever today, involving (least of all) my computer completely refusing to cooperate in any way imaginable so I'm just going to upload it as it is so I can stop being annoyed at it. So here it is, sans floor shadow and a coupla other things. Phooey! Phooey, I say! I will make it better and give it a formal uploading on vimeo or something later! Sorry to all you (doubtless by now both innumerable and disappointed) fans expecting more of me.

For those in the dark about Rust Monsters, all the necessary info can be found here. Goodnight!

Troglodyte

2011-02-07T18:15:00.001Z

A bloodthirsty race of primitive lizard-men, Troglodytes are mostly found underground, where they live in small tribes. Rarely arming themselves with anything more sophisticated than a simple spear or javelin, Troglodytes have nonetheless evolved some interesting features for protection - most famously, they are capable of excreting a scent through pores in their skin which smells so awful it can disorientate and deter most non-troglodyte foes.

STILL NO ANIMATION, ALTHOUGH YOU CAN HAVE A SNEAKY WORK-IN-PROGRESS PEEK IF YOU WANT:

INTERESTING, HUH? CHECK BACK NEXT WEEK. :3

Catoblepas and Gorgon

2011-02-07T13:50:00.002Z

The Catoblepas and Gorgon are both classic monsters of the D&D beastiaries, but I have a special reason for drawing them both together; they're based on the same mythological creature, though one of them was given a different name.

Pliny the Elder and Bartholomeaeus Anglicus describe the Catoblepas as an Ethiopian bull-like creature with a long neck and head always kept low under the weight of its massive horns. Its vision is deadly. Some centuries later, Claudius Aelianus added that the creature had shaggy hair, a scaly back and poisonous breath. It's generally assumed that all these authors were referring to Africa's wilderbeest.

So this single monster was divided into two monsters: the extremely aggresive, metal-scaled Gorgon with petryfying breath, and a considerably more peaceful, long-necked Catoblepas with death vision.

Animations next week! Probably!

Hobgoblin

2011-01-30T12:59:00.001Z

The hobgoblins form the warrior branch of the goblin army, brandishing spears, axes and swords proudly looted from their fallen enemies. They are a fierce race, all trained in warfare and all eager to expand the empire of their species, but they are as likely to attack another tribe of their own kind as to attack others.

The hobgoblins are the larger cousins of the goblins, man-sized and relying more on tactics and strength than on sneakiness. Though barbaric, they're extremely loyal to their chiefs. They're also another typical low-level encounter.

Sorry about the no entries last week. We wanted to open the post-Guest Week with some animations, but we proved to be a little ambitious. The animations will still be posted in the future, but they still need some work.

Meanwhile, enjoy a mandrill with a sword.

Bugbear

2011-01-30T12:58:00.002Z

Despite appearances, Bugbears are are a close (although vastly more savage) relative of the Goblin. Named for their wide, bear-like noses and short tempers, they doubtless originate from the wily goblin stock but have grown larger and hairier than their diminuitive brethren, forming a truly barbaric culture with a hierarchy established by brute strength. Standing just taller than a man, with thick skin and an umatched eagerness for fighting, the Bugbear is not a creature to be underestimated, especially in numbers.

Alas! Animations still aren't finished so here are some drawings that don't move to tide you over. I feel like this owes a lot to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, not just in the colour but with the approach to linework and shading. Personally, I think anime is a great thing to take inspiration from sometimes, but like any other media you have to pick and choose your sources. Everyone's seen a few Ghibli movies by now, but there's other stuff out there worth looking at, and even if you don't like it, it can be inspirational in its wackiness. Just my two cents, anyway.

See you next week with animations!

GUEST WEEK: Thri-Kreen by Victoria Maderna

2011-01-16T08:51:00.001Z

The mantis warriors scour their arid territory for today's meal, moving slowly and deliberately to best blend in with their surroundings. They come across some high cliffs and, looking up, spot a pair of desert goats steadily making their way up the rocky face. The hunters begin to leap up the steep face, easily finding handholds, and quickly closing the distance between them and their prey. They fall upon the goats with poisonous bites and swipes from their two-bladed gythkas.

Thri-Kreen are a classic D&D monster, appearing all the way back in 1st Edition and gaining popularity in 2nd Edition with the introduction of the Dark Sun campaign setting, where they became one of the playable races. They're one of the more popular non-core player races, though the Thri-Kreen are a little bit to strong for a truly low-level campaign. And really, who wouldn't want to play a giant praying mantis that can leap farther than most can walk, has unique racial weapons, doesn't need to sleep and (depending on the DM) has psychic powers?

This is the final entry for this round of Guest Week. Our closing image has been provided by Victoria Maderna, whose artwork has appeared in the official 4th Edition D&D book, the Player's Strategy Guide. More of her artwork can be seen on Pigs with Crayons, along with that of her partner Federico Piatti.

I'd like to thank all the artists that have contributed to the blog for the past week. It's been really awesome to see different people's styles take on the monsters of D&D. We're definitely going to do another guest week again in the future.

Guest Week: Umber Hulk by Keith Sparrow

2011-01-15T09:20:00.001Z

The Umber Hulk is a subterranean creature capable of burrowing long distances through solid rock. Creatures of mindless anger, they are most often found rampaging through the countryside, attacking and devouring anything small and soft enough not to pose a threat (including humans). Whilst it may seem merely a creature of brute strength, the Umber Hulk is not a force to be underestimated- while it may be slightly lacking in intelligence or magical ability, those ferociously strong arms, capable of literally battering their way through stone, can make short work even of an armoured foe should they get within reach. Umber Hulks have also been known to use their burrowing ability to create traps, pitfalls and cave-ins to deal with enemies too tough to handle otherwise.

Today's illustration is brought to you by Keith Sparrow, a professional illustrator with many years of experience who has specialised in illustrations for children and children's books. Probably the most well-known string to his bow is the popular Mega Manga book, one of a series of How-To-Draw-Manga books which you see pretty often in comic book stores and art stores in england. As you might have gathered from the name, he's also my dad and pretty much the sole reason I wanted to be an illustrator growing up. I really like that Keith produced this illustration completely by hand, it really shows off his genuine skill in that regard, and makes for a really original interpretation of a classic monster. Cheers, dad!

GUEST WEEK: Glaistig by Adam Vian

2011-01-14T08:45:00.001Z

The haunting song comes from a beautiful woman standing waist deep in the pond, her clinging robe mottled with algea. She beckons her victim closer into her embrace, and when her song stops he only has enough time to notice her long teeth, and her goat legs beneath the rippling water surface. What he thought were stones and pebbles in the pond floor turn out to be bones.

And here we have yet another addition to the evil fey collection we've been building. Gosh, they sure ain't nice, aren't they. These fellas come from Celtic mythology, though they aren't always evil in the original legends.

Today's image is given to us courtesy of Adam Vian, another university chum, and one half of the Super Flash Brothers team of Flash games and films. They're currently working on a sequel to one of their more popular games, Detective Grimoire. Our other guest, Catherine Unger, is helping with it too, providing some amazing background artwork for the game, which can be seen on the game development blog.

GUEST WEEK: Nalfeshnee by Matt Dicks

2011-01-13T09:39:00.001Z

The Nalfeshnee is an enormous demon and denizen of the chaotic Abyss. It appears as a huge gorilla-like creature, standing three times the size of a man and weighing more than 8,000 pounds. It flutters obscenely on impossibly-small bat wings, taking horrible enthusiasm in its task: the torturing of damned souls.

In D&D, Devils and Demons are two distinct families of hell-kin; the former reside in the Nine Hells of Baator and represent the Lawful Evil alignment - Devils are evil but generally live by a lawful system, and are more likely to play "within the rules". By contrast, Demons are always Chaotic Evil, and their home - the Abyss - is a lawless place, governed by whoever happens to be strongest at the time (and often-changing).

The Nalfeshnee is brought to us by one Matt Dicks, another illustrator friend of ours. Although perhaps not the greatest enthusiast of role-playing-games, Matt is in posession of a truly amazing and distinctive style, kinda Ralph Steadman in its violence but always with an intelligent restraint. I thought a demonic creature would suit the style well, and I really like what he's given us.

GUEST WEEK: Orcwort by Grethe Bentsen

2011-01-12T09:22:00.001Z

On the hill there's an immense tree that suddenly appeared one night, large, ripe grey fruit hanging from its branches. The fruits twitch and plummet to the ground with a wet sound, and in a few minutes monstrous man-shaped creatures burst from their syrupy interiors. Under cover of darkness they travel to the village below, and first take the livestock and animals. They take the drunks sleeping in the streets, the farmers rising at dawn to discover disappeared chickens, the women travelling to a nearby brook to gather water for the rest of the day... Every morning the grey monsters return to their home tree and place their new victim in a toothy hollow of the tree, which closes and eats.

Today's highly original image is brought to you by Grethe Bentsen, master of card and scissors. She's another one of our university chums and in fact was Joe's partner in their film Ex Libris, where she constructed and photographed the monsters that Joe later composited onto film.

GUEST WEEK: Redcap by Ben Tobitt

2011-01-11T09:34:00.001Z

The majority of Fey creatures (a category that includes faerie, nymphs, and other generally good-natured creatures) express their innately chaotic natures through mischief and folly, generally at the expense of the less-intelligent. Redcaps are one of the few exceptions to the rule - small and decrepit in appearence, these psychotic old men wield long, cruel scythes and take pleasure in little besides murdering the innocent. Legend has it that their eponymous red caps keep their hue by being nightly dipped in the blood of its victims.

Today's illustration is brought to us by Ben Tobitt, an illustration student at Kingston University. Ben is already something of a success before even leaving education, having taken on some high-profile commissions for book and album covers. Check out his website for a great and varied collection of work!

GUEST WEEK: Peryton by Catherine Unger

2011-01-10T10:59:00.001Z

As you look down at the rocky ground, you see it casts a human shadow, arms outstretched and racing in your direction. Surprised, you cast your eyes quickly at the creature itself, an immense eagle with the head and antlers of a stag, diving at you, screeching horribly. As it lands, pinning you, the monster deals the final blow by plunging one of its claws into your chest. It tears out your still-beating heart and begins to eat.

The last thing you see before your vision fades is its long, inexplicably human shadow, which seems to writhe and change, becoming the exact mirror of your own.

Welcome to Day 1 of Guest Week! For the next few days you'll be treated to artists presenting us with their interpretations of the many monsters of Dungeons & Dragons.

Today's image is brought to you by the talented Catherine Unger. Catherine is a friend of ours that we've known since coming to university, and has been something of a prominent contributor to DeviantArt for a while longer than that. She's a dab hand at Photoshop and a lot of other media besides and specialises in conceptual design. Check her out!

Gynosphinx

2011-01-09T14:09:00.001Z

Sphinxes are a family of creatures that widely vary in their levels of intelligence. Hieraco- and Criosphinxes are little more than savage animals, chimaeric creatures who fly and hunt effortlessly, rarely concerning themselves with anything above their basic urges. Gynosphinxes are much more intelligent creatures, with such great intellects that their their time is mostly spent in contemplation of things far more sophisticated than the human mind could appreciate. They are famously fond of puzzles, riddles, or ways of thinking that challenge their (already vast) understanding of the world, and are known to have much respect for creatures capable of appreciating such things. Though physically mighty they are reluctant to fight and would much rather win over an enemy with words than claws.

As requested by Wolfgang Baur, who runs Kobold Quarterly and has done an awful lot of stuff for a variety of roleplaying games! I like any creature that's basically "x-but-with-a-human-face", as it feels like these have really creepy, Boschian inspiration for them. I assume sphinxes were at least partially inspired by this kind of thing (be warned, it's kind of gross) but regardless it's nice to see a mythical beast that doesn't present women in a completely psychotic way (I'm looking at you, Harpies!).

Another reminder that tomorrow we start our Guest Week! check back every day, we'll be uploading another picture by a different artist. IT WILL BE AWESOME

Unicorn

2011-01-09T09:44:00.001Z

The Unicorn gallops across his wild domain, confident in his security. No evil creature can approach him, and hungry wild animals are too wise to consider him prey. He only stops to socialize with the gentle fey of the forest. In exchanfe for their friendship, the Unicorn approaches their wounded and ill, and touches them with his horn, which glows with healing light.

This one's a pretty tough creature, considering it's thought of as pretty girly. If you're a typical party, you're more likely to find yourself allied with it that against it. And if you're an evil party you're going to have a difficult time catching it, because it'll sense you before you notice it and teleport to some other part of the forest.

Picture requested by a user of the Giant In The Playground forums.

I like the idea that the original idea for the unicorn came from mutations that happen naturally in nature, for example albino deer, or one-horned goats and bucks.

Feature on Kobold Quarterly! (also Guest Week news)

2011-01-05T09:18:00.000Z

Oh daaaaang, yo. Look who's artwork is on the Kobold Quarterly site.

We got comissioned to do two illustrations for a new race, the Roachlings, featured in Kobold Quartlerly's 4e adventure setting, Courts of the Shadow Fey. They are a filthy people of half-roach, half-man, primarily living in the most disgusting urban environments. They are sneaky and numerous, and so accustomed to living in filth that disease and poison have little to no effect on them.

Special thanks to Chad Middleton for comissioning us, and Wolfgang Baur (publisher) and Scott Gable (web editor).

And on another note, starting the 10th of January we are going to be having a GUEST WEEK, where we'll be posting monsters as interpreted by seven taleneted artists. It's gon' be good.

Valkyrie

2011-01-02T09:42:00.000Z

These are the maidens of battle, towering above mortal man, born from the spilled blood of war gods. On their steeds the Valkyries are part of the endless battles of the Heroic Domains of Ysgard, or fly over earthly wars in search of great warriors. Their eyes always crackle with lightning, as do their swords. They know no cruelty, but they also know no mercy.

There are actually two entries for the Valkyrie creature in the books of Dungeons & Dragons 3.5. The first is a storm-wielding woman of fury with wings and hooves, and the second one is essentially a celestial level 20 Paladin. I liked aspects of both (the lightning of the first and the steed of the second) and decided to combine them into a single image.

This image is dedicated to Wolfgang Baur, publisher of the D&D/Pathfinder magazine Kobold Quarterly, who requested this creature.

Choker

2011-01-02T09:30:00.003Z

It is assumed by those who study such things that Chokers (so called for their fondness for hanging from rafters and using their long, flexible appendages to catch unsuspecting passers-by) are, as with many monsters, a product of some ancient wizard's attempt to create a deadly minion. Their progenitor long-forgotten, these creatures now populate the cold and dark places of many worlds, hiding in caverns and dungeons in wait for foolish adventurers.

As requested by Daigle, of the Kobold Quarterly forums! Something of a low-level staple, Chokers are a simple but effective incentive to get new players rolling spot and listen checks every time they enter a room. Again, this was inked by hand then coloured on the computer. I think it could do with being a bit more graphic. Oh well!

Marzanna

2010-12-28T09:38:00.001Z

The Marzanna appears as an old woman, frostbite-blue and dressed in torn rags of animal hide. Despite its relatively humanoid appearance, the Marzanna is far beyond human - viewed by villagers as a personification of death and winter, she wanders the snowy wastes, tricking stray travellers and feasting on their cold flesh. Tales tell that if you can trick a Marzanna, you can fool death himself.

Merry belated christmas! Both our monsters this week come from the Frostburn book, something of a nod towards the fiendishly chilly climes we currently find ourselves in. Hags are some cool creatures, and the Marzanna is one of my favourites. The name actually comes from an old Russian goddess of winter which in some parts of the world is still venerated each year by burning, then "drowning" her effigy to bring winter to an end. Cool, huh? My picture this week is sort of special in that the inking was actually done with a pen by hand. I still used photoshop to comp it all together but I think i need to at least start more stuff by hand! Using a computer still feels like the quick-and-easy route. Maybe that can be my new years' resolution!

Snow Weird

2010-12-26T09:36:00.002Z

The Snow Weird is a diviner hailing form the Elemental Plane of Air. Her face is so bright it can't be looked at, and her whirling lower body tapers to pool of rumbling snow. She's is able to predict fortune and destruction, much like an Earth Weird. However, she's more powerful and fickle than her stony counterpart. She sometimes decides to surround her territory in snowstorms and whirlwinds for the sake of it, regardless of who may get trapped in them.

Enjoy your winter-related festivities, y'all.

Fire Giant

2010-12-19T19:03:00.001Z

The Fire Giants are the second smallest of the true giants, next to the oafish Hill Giant, but they don't share their cousin's low intellect. They're a highly organized people, merciless, militaristic, and almost always at war with their neighbours. Their invulnerability to fire leads them to make lairs in volcanoes and use flaming weaponry.

Special treat! A (kinda) animated post!

This was animated in After Effects, which is something I sometimes have trouble coming to grips with. I'm more used to using more traditional methods or Flash. Hopefully there'll be more animated posts in the future. Hopefully they'll be GIFs because this whole having to upload a video thing is pretty tiresome.

Edit:

Also an image, because the quality of that video isn't what it could be.

Rust Monster

2010-12-19T19:01:00.002Z

The Rust Monster is a squat quadrupedal creature covered in thick chitin of a dirty orange colour. It gets its name from its diet - the two long antennae protruding from beneath its eyes are capable of instantly rusting and disintegrating any and all metals they come into contact with, even those with magical enhancements. The Rust Monster then proceeds to devour the oxidised scraps which are its main food source.

The Rust Monster is an infamous creature and the bane of many an adventurer - that nice, shiny new +2 enhancement sword of impaling you picked up in the last dungeon? Disintegrated in seconds. The funny part is the creature itself isn't even that strong. Trying to go for a more gouache-ish effect in this one. As requested by /tg/!

Defacer

2010-12-19T01:02:00.001Z

A Defacer is an undead creature formed when the spirit of a shapechanging creature, such as a Doppelganger, is animated by a necromancer. Most ordinary creatures, once risen in such a way, will generally keep the form they held in life. Shapechangers, however, barely having a definite form or identity to start with, are brought back as dark, blank, faceless creatures, and their utter absence of identity compels them to "steal" the faces of those around them, a horrific ability which leaves the victim's face featureless. The many faces they "collect" in this way swim about their body, keening frightfully.

Been working a lot in what I guess would be called pixelart lately, essentially eschewing anti-aliasing of any kind and getting down and dirty with each individual pixel. It's really satisfying, it actually feels a lot to me like painting but there's a really nice, economic feel to it because you can only get so much detail in, every pixel has to be in the right place. anyway, another quick one this week, I'm actually a week behind now so I'll probably be doing another one tomorrow!

Violet Fungus

2010-12-12T12:04:00.001Z

The Violet Fungus is a man-sized, flesh-eating mushroom that primarily dwells in subterranean caverns. The mushroom can move, albeit very slowly. It's common to find it living among patches of another variety of predatory mushroom, the Shrieker, which can attract prey by emitting a sound like a person or animal in danger. This lures them within striking range of the Violet Fungus' poisoned tentacles.

Yup, plants can be enemies in D&D. You're never really safe. This is another request, suggested by Slagger the Chuul of the Wizards of the Coast forums.

Century Worm

2010-12-05T13:20:00.001Z

The Century Worm is a rare giant creature that can appear in any part of the world. It's a mindless creature, uncontrollable, born to eat and moves across the landscape making deafening screeching noises. It's large enough to swallow a horse whole, and anything it eats will be broken down by more than stomach acid; the Century Worm's stomach carries millions of its young.

This creature is one of the more high-level encounters, where a character needs to be at Conan levels of strength and Merlin levels of magic. It's a pretty slow creature, so it's always possible to run away.

Coatl

2010-12-05T13:18:00.001Z

The Coatl is a legendary winged snake native to warm forests. They are highly magical and innately good, making them excellent creatures to run into in most situations (unless you happen to be evil). High-level spellcasters have Summon Coatl available to them as a spell, which, if learnt, can be used to greatly bolster the magical power of any band of adventurers.

Coatl, is, of course, a reference to the mesoamerican deity Quetzalcoatl, who (typical of aztec gods) has some really cool primitive artwork of him. I took inspiration from the colours commonly used to depict him (green/blue) but otherwise tried to do something a little more abstract. Also drawing lots of feathers takes a long time D: This weeks' monsters were both requests, this one being the request of giantitp.com forum user Serpentine.

Spirit Naga

2010-11-29T12:52:00.001Z

Nagas are snakelike creatures, and are, by and large, rather evil. They inhabit the dark and dank parts of the world, using their strength, cunning and magical ability to keep lesser creatures in thrall.

Nagas, like Liches and Beholders, fit in nicely as an enemy in almost any campaign - their predilection for evil and accumulation of underlings serves them well as a "final boss" sort of character. Their name is taken from a variety of snake-spirits in eastern mythology, the Nāga, which also lend their name to Voldemort's pet snake.

Another relative quickie this week, I have plenty to do! I think next week we're going to be doing some more requests.

Otyugh

2010-11-28T18:56:00.001Z

The Otyugh is one of the more repugnant creatures of the world. It lives in filth, consumes it, and there are even varieties of the monster where their appearance varies according to the specific kind of waste they're surrounded with. While not specifically evil, they're governed by their stomachs. But they're intelligent enough to strike basic deals; its common for more intelligent beings to use them as guardians or as waste disposal.

This is one of Dungeon and Dragons' classic creatures, appearing in the first Monster Manual and thought up by Gary Gygax himself. They're really bizarre looking creatures, with a tentacle coming out of their head that acts as a visual and olfactory organ.

Lucky the Goblin and Bones the Wolf

2010-11-22T23:04:00.004Z

Golin "Lucky" Muutdar is one of the most skilled scouts in Willow Vale, and a high-ranked member of the Royal Outriders. With his trusted mount Bones, he guards the western hills of the Vale, watching for enemies.

So this week we decided to do our most recent PCs, which we played with a really nice group in a campaign for the Willow Vale setting. I decided to do a goblin ranger. Normally these guys are evil creatures, but in the continuity of the campaign, goblins had recently become good. In the campaign we were sent back into the past to stop the race of elves to be completely wiped out by prehistoric giants.

I mostly acted as the scout for the party, since when riding on the wolf I had the fastest land speed. I'd go up ahead, make sure everything was fine, and use this house one of the other characters had to teleport back to the party. The other guys did the brunt of the damage, since I only had my dinky little arrows.

We got ambushed while I was scouting ahead. The team did a really good job of defending themselves (barbarian, paladin, cleric, wizard and a rogue), and I helped out mostly by casting spells that could slow down the enemy enough so as to not overwhelm the other guys. At one point the giants shot like 12 arrows at me, and none hit.

It was a really awesome game.

Olaf Ullathorne

2010-11-22T23:04:00.001Z

Olaf Ullathorne is a fierce warrior of the mountain-clans of Trosk, a sporadic scattering of settlements among the highest and most ferocious peaks of the southern mountains. Considerably stronger and larger than the average warrior (the Ullathorne clan was rumoured to carry giant blood), he has travelled the land working essentially as muscle-for-hire, but is known to be more discerning than his peers when it comes to morals. His weapon of choice is as large and intimidating as he is - a gigantic, two-handed staff bound at one end with a fierce tangle of antlers, mountain-lion teeth and flint blades known as a sugliin - which was once his clan's ancestral totem. His family brutally slaughtered by a neighboring tribe, he now wields it in the name of his ancestors; even though their bloodline has come to an end, the legendary Ullathorne clan will live on through his deeds.

This is the character I had the pleasure of playing in the recent campaign the guys at the London D&D Meetups group held, DMed by Simon Newall. I'm not particularly characterful with my roleplaying but I certainly enjoyed killing three half-giants in one round of combat in a particularly grizzly fight (pictured above). :3

Yrthak

2010-11-14T18:14:00.001Z

The Yrthak is a monstrous flying reptilian creature. They are omniverous, but with a preference for meat, and are well-equipped with some extraordinary features for hunting. Although blind, a special sensory organ on the tongue informs them of the exact location of anything making a noise within around 120 metres, allowing them to swoop in deftly for the kill. For well-armoured foes, they posess the ability to use the large, spiralled horn on their head to emit a concentrated burst of sound, powerful enough to knock down and deafen anyone caught in its path. It is thought that this strange organ is also used in communicating (since the creature does not speak), and echolocation.

To clear up any confusion, the Yrthak is pictured above hunting another odd-looking creature, the bird-horse or Achaierai, with which it shares the environment of "temperate mountains". This week's theme is "flyers", and it took me a few goes to get it right (or at least "okay").

Howler Wasp

2010-11-14T12:04:00.002Z

This creature didn't happen naturally, as many creatures do, but was the mistake of the paranoid wizard Otiulke. Seeking to protect himself from Slaadi enemies, he sought to create a fierce guardian animal. His initial experiment provided the Howler Wasps, a combination of monkey and hornet. They proved to be too vicious to control, but Otiulke was caught and killed before he could destroy his creation. They escaped and have since been spreading through the world, creating giant nests ruled over by a monstrous Queen.

Really, what do you expect when you try to make a something that combines the cuddlyness of a wasp with the friendliness of a baboon? Fortunately, the howler wasps are fairly small creatures, about the size of a dog (which I guess is still a little too big) and fairly weak. However, killing one means that the body begins secreting a pheromone that attracts other wasps and drives them into a frenzy.

Just set the nest on fire.

Troll

2010-11-07T23:38:00.001Z

The Troll is a green-skinned, mountain-dwelling monster. They're not very smart, and appear clumsy because of their sloping posture, but they have all their senses tuned to relentlessly tracking down their victims. A Troll can regenerate any damage done to it, even the loss of an important body part either by attaching the lost part to the stump, or just growing a new one a few minutes later. It's possible that their low intelligence is partially because of their durability, that the Troll never felt a reason to be clever enough to avoid damage. Fire is their worst enemy.

Trolls are pretty classic monsters in roleplaying games and out. I'm not familiar enough with the mythology of this particular creature to know whether the regeneration thing stems from legend, or whether its an invention of D&D.

This interpretation of the troll is strangely plant-like. They're mostly green, and sometimes the hair is described as softly undulating, like it has a life of its own. The trolls have a sibling race called Scrags, which are esentially the same only aquatic, and their regeneration ability only manifests itself when mostly submerged underwater. This further empasizes the whole plant thing. Maybe there's a legend somewhere that says trolls came from trees or something.

Earth Weird

2010-11-07T23:26:00.001Z

Weirds are elemental beings, pure manifestations of elemental matter and energy. They are divining spirits, whose close relationship to the material of the universe allows a degree of foresight concerning events to come - most Weirds being of the four primary elements, fire, water, air and earth.

Earth Weirds are in some ways the most cryptic of these creatures, foretelling success or failure in regards to material posessions. Each Weird is bound to a specific location of its own element - a "pool" - from which is may not leave (except to return to its plane of origin). The pool of an Earth Weird is as startling as it is deadly - a constantly churning, roiling mass of rock and dirt.

This week's theme is female creatures! This is mostly for my benefit, as I need a lot more practice drawing women (read: I am terrible at it). This little number was cooked up with a lot of help from various reference sources (cough) and inspiring artists (Ross Campbell to name one). I know talking about it is kind of perverted but I have a deep physical admiration for a wide variety of female body types, and I want that to come across in my depictions of them without just being all T&A.