Deep Dragon

As one would expect, deep dragons are found deep, deep in the earth. It's not completely certain whether deep dragons are their own species, or some kind of mutated version of a true dragon. Regardless, they're just as powerful as true dragons. Surface dwellers may now give a sigh of relief as it's made known that deep dragons have no interest in leaving their dark world. They sometimes make pacts with drow, but that's mostly to keep an eye on them and make sure that whatever the drow do, it won't interfere with the deep dragon's well-being.

Deep dragons cannot be trusted. They’re especially tricky creatures, and similarly difficult to fool. Even a wyrmling is born with innate true seeing, making them immune to the effects of illusions and invisibility. Older deep dragons become more attuned to their cavernous and stony environment. They start out being able to easily burrow through stone and worm their way though small cracks. By the time end of their lifespan, deep dragons can command the stone to open, close and warp as they please.

Why fight some repugnant humanoid skulking in the tunnel you've left behind when you can simply command the tunnel to seal itself, crushing the intruder?

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Zaratan

The Zaratan is an almost-legendary creature of the sea. There are islands that people get stranded on, but the island moves. It moves so slowly that the people on it don't realize that they're on a turtle instead of on land. This animal, while large and potentially dangerous, is also slow and lazy. It prefers to float on the surface of the water with its mouth open, letting fish fly into its gullet. The creature can't be actively directed like a ship or horse, but a musician may play certain songs that excite the giant turtle out of its ordinary stupor. It's uncertain whether these turtles are their own species or ordinary turtles who have grown over millenia. No young ones have ever been found.

The beast-landmass is a very well-trod trope in stories. It's usually a combination of the size and slowness of the creature. A titan, whale, giant turtle or other creature will be asleep for long enough (or simply slow enough) for vegetation to begin growing on its body. People unsuspectingly walk on or even inhabit the island before they realize they're on a living creature.

This trope first appears in the legends and folktales of ancient sea-faring cultures. Today, you can see this played out in the Discworld book series, Pokémon, Shadow of the Colossus, Avatar the Last Airbender and probably a ton of other entertainment. The Zaratan itself appears in Jose Luis Borges' The Book of Imaginary Beings.

--Blanca

Red Dragon

Happy 200 images!

We mostly keep away from dragons and such to do some of the more obscure creatures in the D&D bestiaries. Those ones are usually a bit weirder and a bit what, but they're sometimes pretty cool and need more love. But in special occasions like these, you need to go back to the classics. Specifically, the classic final boss of the campaign and proof of your heroicness.

Among all the dragons, the Red Dragon is the one you really have to watch out for. They are the classic dragon: fire breather, gold hoarder, maiden eater, town razer. They are cruel, vindictive, greedy creatures and amongst the most powerful of dragons (only a fully grown gold dragon is stonger than a fully grown red). Even straight out of the egg, they're already the size of a human and are capable of taking down bears and similar dangerous animals. When they reach the Great Wyrm stage of their life, they're the only chromatic dragon to reach Colossal size, about 70ft in length. Even the main head of Tiamat, the chromatic dragon goddess, is that of a red dragon.

The first famous red dragon was Tolkein's Smaug from The Hobbit, who is the template on which all modern dragons come from. Which is a shame in some ways, because it feels like it limits them to a flying crocodile-dinosaur kind of form. I tried going in a more medieval direction with the Red Dragon, giving it some more leonine features, though he's still quite scaly and bat-winged.

Pit Fiend

The Pit Fiend stands twice as tall as an adult human, wreathed in flames and using its wide wings like a grotesque cape. Pit Fiends are the princes of the diabolic realm of the Nine Hells of Baator, chief movers and shakers among the Baatezu. Endowed with monstrous strength and agility, as well as magical power, they are intelligent fighters and tacticians, more than capable of wiping out an entire party of adventurers solo. Luckily for the inhabitants of the material plane, the eternal conflicts of Baator keep the majority of these devils occupied.

Pit Fiend! Simple look, I guess influenced by things like Firebrand and that little blue Devil guy from that NES game that's in Brawl, and also by Chernabog. Mostly influenced by me trying to add tons of details like armour and chains and stuff and then thinking "god this looks terrible" and then removing it. Woo hoo! Art!

Tarrasque

He Who Sleeps Beneath The Earth; the Great Hungerer; the Tarrasque. He lies dormant, but one day will wake. We await his return, when he will sow such perfect desolation that the worlds will be wiped clean and the land formed anew. We watch for His coming, as we lower our eyes towards his sleeping-place in the heart of the earth. Be vigilant, brothers and sisters; he comes.

I remember when I first picked up a Monster Manual my immediate urge was to scour the thing for the most powerful creature therein. I asked my (more knowledgeable) friend (who had lent me the book) who swiftly pointed me in the direction of the Tarrasque. I was suitably impressed - a legendary, 50-foot bipedal godzilla-esque creature which can't actually die and whose shell rendered it almost invulnerable to both weapons and magic. In fact, it can be said that the Tarrasque has only two good points - it sleeps underground for a very long time in between feeding sessions (or "natural disasters" depending on where you live) and there is mercifully only one of them. Needless to say, neither of these are much comfort if you are unlucky enough to experience it first-hand.

I think my interpretation here might seem a little extreme to some people, as the Tarrasque's appearance is very iconic. I just didn't want to draw the same godzilla/king bowser hybrid that most other artists use. Three principal things strike me about the Tarrasque's described appearance - it is bipedal, it has a shell that can bounce spells back at their users, and it has horns. It is also, curiously, described as "bird-like" in gait. The shell here is based off various pillbugs as well as the amazing Pangolin - this seems to be an element that some artists neglect in the Tarrasque's appearance, and since being practically unkillable is one of the creature's main traits I made a bigger deal out of it.

The beak, eyes and the curled-up pose are sort of a nod towards the Cthulhu mythos, which matches the creature's MO of sleeping for long periods of time. I also like the idea that some misguided apocalyptic cult is aware of the Tarrasque and worships it (despite the creature having only animalian intelligence).

I'm actually genuinely interested in what people think of the redesign here so feel free to let me know what you guys think in the comments.

DRAGON MONTH: Black Dragon

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.

GUEST WEEK: Orcwort by Grethe Bentsen

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.