Saint

The path to sainthood is a difficult one, requiring years of sacrifice, self-reflection and utter dedication to your holy path. Though sainthood is not the same as godhood, it does grant abilities to the saint that allow them to stay alive for longer to spread the word of their god.

"Saint" isn't a creature, really, but a template that can be added onto any PC after level 6. Feels like that's kinda early to get the holiness required to be a saint but whatever. It's kinda up to the DM's discretion whether you qualify for the template anyway, and it does essentially require you to sacrifice two levels of progression for the sake of power balance. But you do get a lot of abilities that are essentially free that make you really hard to kill, so there's that.

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Shedu

The shedim are a group of chimeric beasts somewhat related to sphinxes and the lamassu. Though not holy in the planar sense, shedim will often work with clerics and help them with their questions. Some suspect that shedim were kings in the past, which the creatures neither confirm nor deny. These days they spend a good deal of time hopping between the Ethereal and Material planes, guarding the world from Chaos.

So shedu/lamassu are kinda interchangeable folklorically, though some people will argue that lammasu are leonine, that shedu are bovine, that lammasu are female... But they exist more as artwork than in stories. You'll see them as these absolutely massive reliefs and statues from Mesopotamia. These statues are really neat because they have a little bit of trickery going on. The shedu is carved with five legs, but not in a way that implies that it actually has five legs. Looking at it from the front, you only see the two front-most legs, showing that the shedu is standing there, guarding. From the side, you see four legs, showing the creature walking instead of standing (one of the front legs is hidden by the profile).

(The shedu in the Fiend Folio is supposed to have five legs, but I couldn't make it look good, so the drawing only has four).

Like I said, there aren't that many stories about them that I've found. Apparently they show up in The Epic of Gilgamesh, but I've only been able to find mentions of bulls without specifying whether they have wings and human heads. But they seem to be associated with celestial bodies. So I made the shedu out of space.

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Nymph

Nymphs are a type of female spirit that acts as the fairy guardian of wild places. They're all generally described as beautiful, sweet-voiced and fickle. While nymphs can inhabit any natural place (trees, rocks, etc...) your standard nymph tends to live near freshwater pools or rivers.

As with many other fey spirits, nymphs prefer to remain hidden from mortal eyes, but that doesn't make them harmless. If they feel their territory is in any way damaged or disrespected, the nymph's revenge is swift. Animals, plants and the weather are her allies, and she won't hesitate to use them. However, calling attention to yourself by being especially reverent isn't the best course of action either. While you may receive blessings from the nymph, she can also become possessive and demanding, or inspire such love and pity in her that she will try to capture you to keep as a pet.

Some nymphs have been known to make their homes in dangerous, rocky places, and take delight in luring mortals to their deaths. These tend to be the favoured daughters of powerful nature spirits, who can count on their father's magic and rage to protect them from any retribution that may come to them.


I know nymphs are good aligned creatures, but a nymph can totally make a decent final boss for a low-level campaign. The D&D nymph has some pretty great and pretty crippling abilities. Besides a number of defensive and offensive spells, nymphs can't be looked at directly, since doing so can result in a character being permanently blinded by how crazy pretty they are. A thing that seems a bit weird is that they don't actually have charm person or any of those enchantments, but whatever.

I don't think this particular nymph would be considered blindingly gorgeous by anyone, but you don't know what fairy magic can do to the mind.

I went for a slightly more insectile look with this gal. Specifically dragonflies. Dragonflies are pretty.

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Hollyphant

The hollyphant is a celestial creature primarily associated with Chaav and Lastai, two gods of joy, acting primarily as their messengers. Most of the time a hollyphant is seen, it will appear as a petite flying elephant, about the size of a small dog. But if it needs to attack, it will shift into a giant, more threatening shape.

While small, the hollyphant is immune from all spells. It loses this protection when it shifts into its larger form, trading defense for offense. Despite the size change, it remains just as nimble both on ground and in the air.  It has as many magical spells, but it's main attack is it's trunk. As well as knock enemies about in it, the hollyphant can either release a shattering bellow or spray a shower of light (deadly to evil).

Note that both forms of the hollyphant are it's true form. If viewed through a true seeing spell, both its large and smaller selves will be seen at the same time.

This is one of those creatures that I always kinda rolled my eyes at when I saw it. The illustration of the big winged elephant thing is not that good. But then I noticed there was a CUTE TINY GOLDEN FLYING ELEPHANT hiding next to it and I was like yesssssss.

I chose to do this as two illustrations instead of one because the CUTE TINY GOLDEN FLYING ELEPHANT deserved to be more noticeable than it is in the book. Some liberties were taken with the design of the big form. It's supposed to have wings, but I like to think it can still fly with its ears. Just a huge bulk kept aloft by vigorously flapping tiny ears.

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Word Archon

There are many types of magic in the world. Amongst one of the purest forms of magic is truename magic. Everything in the world has a true name, a word that encapsulates the whole of their being. Ordinary arcane magic relies on a combination of spoken word, magic ingredient and/or mystic gesture. With truename magic, one only has to vocalize, using the true words which make up the fabric of the universe. However, the truename magic is very precise, relying heavily on intonation. Pronouncing a word wrong usually means the words fizzle, but certain higher powers of the multiverse have names which are able to twist back and damage those who use them incorrectly.

Word archons are the heavenly beings tasked with holding up the sanctity of truename magic. Flying on wings of paper, these archons strike down those who pervert true names to fulfil evil purposes. They are especially studious archons and will make sure to know the true name of their hated target so that their magic will land more effectively.

Name magic is something I always found quite fascinating. It's a fairly common fantasy trope, with magic generally being treated as using the original words of the universe. Knowing an entity's real name is definitely one that gets used and gets mentioned a lot in occult texts. I think Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea series is probably one of the better known examples. Voldemort from Harry Potter kinda has a similar thing going on, but that's less that his name is inherently magic and more that he's put charms on his own name.

I like to call word archons librariangels.

Shamefully channeling Shenanimation's style for this. Look at their stuff, it's neat.

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Luna Moth

There are planes in the universe (Faerie, the Feywild, the First World, Arborea, the Beastlands, whatever you want to call them), where nature is bigger, greater than it is in our lowly Material Plane. Some would even say that in those other planes are home to creatures as they were initially conceived by the gods. It isn't nature there; it's Nature. So while our world has moths, the other planes have Moths.

There we can find the Luna Moth, a horse-sized insect occasionally used by elves and fey creatures as mounts. They need to be trained in combat of course, but only about as much as an ordinary soldier would need to be trained. Luna Moths are intelligent creatures, making them partners as well as mounts. Sadly, they have no mouths with which to speak.

Luna Moths are ideal for scouting missions; they're capable of turning invisible at will and can see invisible other things which are hiding with invisibility spells. Though they can buffet targets with their wings, they're too thin to do much damage, making them poor combatants. The wings can scatter a soporific powder to create an avenue for escape.

Insects are really interesting animals. Did a bit of research into real luna moths. Your classic neutral luna moth is American, but other moon moth species exist in Asia and Africa. They all have big wings (yellow or green) with long tails coming off the lower wings. It's a bit of a sad insect as well, one of those whose adult stage only exists for mating. Luna moths don't have mouths and therefore can't feed, giving it only seven days to find partners before starving to death.

They might be called "luna" or "moon" moths because their eye-spots look a little like waxing moons? Most sources I'm looking at say that they're called that because they're nocturnal, but so are most moths.

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Angel, Planetar

Planetar are but one facet of the many-sided jewel that is the angelic hierarchy. As a manifestation of goodness and law, angelic beings function as wardens against the spread of evil and chaos throughout the planes, and Planetar serve as elite soldiers in that battle.

While angels are without exception good-natured and compassionate beings, Planetar see it as their primary purpose to destroy evil wherever they find it - often with a violent fervour that other good beings find shocking. It is worth remembering, however, that as interplanar beings, Planetar have seen and experienced much that mere mortals never have or will. It is not inconceivable, therefore, that they are acquainted with far more powerful and malicious beings than will ever trouble the material plane, and that while their dogmatic attitude may seem unreasonable to us, their presence in the multiverse guards against many far greater evils.

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Considering how much of a stereotype they are, I'm weirdly fond of both angels and their demonic counterparts in fantasy. These days it's rather common to put the whole "both bad but for different reasons" spin on it, where neither the angelic nor demonic powers are shown to be fully in the right, and some shade-of-grey via media is (perhaps somewhat patronisingly) offered as the "correct" choice.

While the allegory serves to demonstrate that dogmatic adherence to a way of being can be toxic - for example, the angels and devils in the Sandman series, or in Spawn, or even Bayonetta* (angels are beaurocratic pedants, devils debauched sadists) - it's fun to look at how and why each "side" justifies their actions. I quite like it when, as in settings like the Warhammer 40K universe, the "good guys" (the human Emperor and his minions) are capable of some truly horrible stuff - but the threat of Chaos is so much worse that you can kind of see how they justify it to themselves.

In D&D this kind of relates to the alignment system, too. Angels are Good, devils & demons are Evil. A lot of debate comes up around what is even meant by either descriptor; for what it's worth, I'm most comfortable completely separating Good and Evil as D&D concepts from good and evil as ethical ideas. Good, in the context of alignments, I take to simply mean "selfless". They do stuff for others more than for themselves. Evil means "selfish". Under this definition, a Lawful Good character can still be unpleasant, can still be horribly violent, can still be an utterly horrible addition to a party. Granted, in many instances this won't be the case, but I think the possibility for a nasty Good-aligned character (and, by extension, a nice Evil-aligned character) makes for interesting characterisation.

When I was colouring this I realised it reminded me a bit of Undyne from Undertale, which I was prepared to chalk up to unconscious plagiarism but then I checked and the first sketch of it was from March 2015 - before the game released!! In related news: this one took me a long while to get comfortable with. I gave up on it for a while, then happened upon the sketch again recently and decided to try finishing it. I think it's ok, although I still don't feel like I've quite zeroed in on the correct amount of detail for these things.

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*NB: I have been playing a lot of Bayonetta recently and I'm super fond of its concept art can you tell????

Ki-Rin

Should you see a ki-rin in your vicinity know that somebody is about to have either a very good or very bad day. It is an agent of truth and order and spies into the minds of those around them to find evil thoughts. To those it finds worthy, it gifts clothing and items, or otherwise appears as an omen of good fortune. The ki-rin is a horse-like creatures that, despite their massive size, have such a light footsteps that they won't bend a blade of grass beneath their hooves.

Doing research on this was interesting. I'd been aware of the kirin/qilin creature for a while, and was well aware of how weird it is that it's called "the unicorn of the east" when most depictions of this dude show him with two. It's more common in Japan to see a kirin with one horn, but most other Asian cultures with a version of this creature go for the two-horn thing. Like a deer. Or a giraffe. Which is actually what the creature is based on, actually. Some Chinese bigwig centuries ago got a giraffe as a gift and was all like, this means I'm super important, and lots of weird iterations later we get the horse-deer-dragon-cloud thing that the qilin appears as. "Kirin" is actually the Japanese word for giraffe, kinda how "baku" is the word for tapir.

Ki-rin's horn is inspired by this funky little mutant deer skull thing. Oh nature, you goof up sometimes.

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Correction: While giraffes and kirin/qilin are closely associated, the mythological creature is likely not based on the other. The earliest mention of a qilin is in 5th century BC China, while a real giraffe was brought to China in the 15th century (i.e. about 2000 years later) by the explorer Zheng He. While it’s possible that the original qilin was based on an ancient giraffe sighting by some other explorer or visitor to China, there is no actual record of this being the case. The Yellow Emperor (from the 2500s BC) supposedly had some qilins, but since he’s more of a King Arthur type legendary figure, we should take that with a grain of salt.
Special thanks to @unikirin for spotting my mistake.

Avoral

Avorals are one of the many Celestials who fight against evil. The avoral is strong (it has to be to flap those wings), yet light and swift. Its touch can heal the worthy, and it can telepathically communicate with all animals. However, the avoral is best known for its amazing sense of sight. It can see through all disguises, even invisibility, and can make out details from miles away. They make excellent scouts for the forces of good, is what I'm saying.

Sorry about how slow Dungeons & Drawings has been lately, by the way. It's been a busy few weeks job-wise and social-wise, not leaving that much time for personal drawings. The last couple of images were a bit of a headache to do, what with the necrophidius having all those dang little bones and the legs on the avoral just not being quite right for the longest time.

Anyway, I should hopefully have some time to get a few images done in advance.

Special news for you Canadians out there. Dungeons & Drawings and Joe Sparrow Comics will be at TCAF next May! Huzzah! We haven't done a con outside of England before, so we're quite keen to see how they compare. Hope to see some of you guys there.

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Rhek

The rhek are a race of rhino-men who help maintain order in the plane of the Peaceable Kingdoms of Arcadia. They're one of the races that make up the Harmonium, a militant sect that enforces lawful goodness through violence. Seems a bit of a contradiction, but that's what paladins do, really. The Harmonium seeks to create a dictatorship of goodness, where those who adhere to their ideals are guaranteed peaceful, prosperous lives. It's supposed to be of those philosophical questions about order and goodness at the cost of freedom. Can we truly call ourselves good if we don't have the option to be evil? At what point does governing and eforcing cross over into tyranny?

Honestly, the idea of the Harmonium (who also served as the police force in the inter-dimensional city of Sigil) is a bit more interesting that the rhek themselves. Though you can see how they would make good enforcers of the law, since they have abilities that let them detect and smite chaotic creatures. They also seem to share one trait with the krogan from the Mass Effect games: redundant organs. This translates into rhek basically continuing to fight until they are stone dead.

Treant

Treants are large plant-creatures that grow and shepherd plants and trees of the more mundane varieties. Tree-like themselves in appearance, they are often easily mistakable for the foliage they ward.

The treant combines the stoic toughness of ancient plant-life with the monstrous strength of large animals, resulting in a curious hybrid of tree and beast. Although typically slow and ponderous, if a treant's herd is threatened they are easily angered - and an angered treant is truly a sight to behold.

Treants are fun as a concept because of the fact that they mix traits from two of the most fundamentally differing lineages of life imaginable. It's fun to think about how the world would look if human, or even animal, intelligence had been achieved by some other branch of evolution.

Tree-men classically play off the idea that forests can be some pretty eerie places, especially given the odd shapes that you find trees contorting into (see Mandragora plants for some good examples). I based the swole body of this guy off the famous baobab trees of vaious places in Africa, although the body has all these little rooty growths coming off of it that are supposed to look like those little shoots potatoes grow. I also decided to go with making it overall less human-shaped and more like a big scuttling spider-thing. Blanca reckons it's a bit far from the traditional tolkienesque treant but I'm quite fond of it!

Hammer Archon

I suppose agents of heavenly interventions technically aren't supposed to have preferences over who they ally themselves with (other than the ally also being good). But dwarves and gnomes and such just have a greater appreciation for the Hammer Archon's physical makeup and direct approach to problem-solving.

The Hammer Archon is essentially what you get when you get yourself an Earth Elemental and give it a sense of righteous purpose. And a hammer (non-negotiable, comes with the job). As you can tell from those images, I like me some banded gemstones, the Archon being inspired by purple agate. Malachite is still the prettiest stone, yo.

Have been finding it a little difficult lately to pick a creature from the books lately. The Ghosteater was selected by Joe, who got rid of all mentions of the name and the illustration. That makes us rely only on the description of the creature without being influenced by other artwork. But I can't make him do that every week, so this creature was randomly selected using the dice-roller at Rolz. Most other rollers are a bit limited, sticking to the more common dice types (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d100, so on), but Rolz lets you input d-whatever, which is plenty useful. First a d77 for a random books, then another d-whatever depending on how many creatures the book has.

Leskylor

Leskylor are among the natural fauna of the Blessed Fields of Elysium, making their homes in the caves nestled in wind-shorn peaks. Leskylor are prone to a particular type of mutation, that of multiple heads. Up to three-headed Leskylor have been spotted by dimensional travellers in Elysium. Which of course makes them all the more dangerous, as even a one-headed Leskylor is able to breathe out cones of bitter cold. These blue winged tigers are as independent as their ordinary mortal cousins, but vastly more intelligent and a useful ally against the forces of evil. They have a number of heavenly abilities which let them unearth any hidden evil-doers and move them to (temporary) repentance.

If I'm honest, I just wanted to draw a fat tiger, really.

Also, we've (finally) purchased a copy of the 5th Edition D&D Player's Handbook, and while it's really simplified down, it does still seem appealing to me. Especially the artwork. The art's crazy gorgeous in this book. A big reason why I didn't get into 4e D&D is just the artwork in the Player's Handbook was not really my cup of tea. Maybe it improved in future books, but I wouldn't know. Let me tell you though, if they release the Dark Sun setting for 5e, I will definitely definitely be running some of that.

We play mostly Pathfinder in our group, though I do want to branch out into other systems. We've already experimented with the Savage Worlds' Deadlands: Reloaded setting (mixed results, but I really like the setting), and the next time I get to DM, I'm running a Call of Cthulhu game. Although it just illustrates my luck that I go out an purchase the 6th Edition Call of Cthulhu handbook when 7th Edition is about to come out and is apparently the one that's making the most changes to the actual rules of the game. Have also been eyeing with some interest Legend of the Five Rings, Numenera, The Strange and Nobilis. Must hold off though, as I have limited time to play and also limited shelves to put books on. And pdfs are nowhere as nice as material books.

Anyway as I was saying, 5e Dark Sun plz.

Green Warder

Green Warders are cultivated by the elves of Faerûn to act as guardians of their most sacred places. Despite this, a Warder is still a plant rather than a constuct, since constructs are normally made out of unliving material, while the Warders are still living plants. The Warder is not meant to be a combatant, but a decoy. Their branches and leaves are arranged in such a way so that it looks like an elf from a distance, causing any interlopers to either turn back or follow the fake. In addition to that, the Warder can cast several enchantments to either confuse or put intruders to sleep.

When elves migrate from one area to another, they may leave the Warders behind, which will still carry out its duties. However, without the elves there to trim them regularly, the Warder grows shaggy with overgrown leaves and branches.

I know horns aren't an especially elfy thing. Well, here's what I think about elves. I ain't like 'em. Or I specifically don't like those hippie frou-frou elves that are just so calm and intelligent and beautiful and blehhh. It's kind of why I prefer drow to ordinary elves, because at least drow have an interesting trait in their general awful evilness. In fantasy, I tend to find most elves to be a race of Mary Sues with maybe a little bit of condescension for the other races.

Which means that my favourite forest elves are the Lorwyn elves of Magic: The Gathering. They're a bit closer to Fair Folk, which is how I like my elves: self-obsessed, arrogant, dangerous and in tune with the more deadly aspects of plant-life. They loathe all other non-elf creatures (they call them eyeblights) and seek to enslave others at best or hunt them at worst. Also, they have horns. Which is why I gave the Green Warder horns.

EPIC MONTH: Phoenix

The Phoenix is a unique creature. In fact, it may be the only one of its kind.

Its plumage is the colours of fire and burn with the same intensity. Even when a feather is shed, assuming it doesn't simply burn away, it retains heat and golden light indefinitely. It can start fires with a touch and its blood burns like lava. The Phoenix's fire is more than just mundane flame, as creatures normally immune to it find themselves burned by divinity.

The most striking ability of the Phoenix is its self-immolation. Every few centuries, the Phoenix spontaneously bursts into flames and a younger version rises from the glowing ashes. This same ability is also used as a defense mechanism, making it able to burn away all damage in a matter of seconds. To see the Phoenix self-immolate can be considered a good or bad omen, depending on your interpretation. However, it is certainly a bad omen if you're within the burn range.


Welcome to Epic Month. As a celebration of Dungeons & Drawings four-year anniversary, we're going to be posting epic-level creatures, i.e. creatures which should only be fought by adventurers of 20th level or higher. At this challenge rating, creatures encountered are more divine forces than ordinary forces, capable of levelling landscapes, destroying souls and bending time and space.

Honestly, the Phoenix's immolation supernatural ability seems a bit OP to me. Basically, as a full round action it can kill itself, dealing massive damage within a certain area, reapparing at the end of the round with full hit points. You can probably count its spell-like abilities as refreshed too, since this phoenix technically counts as a "new" bird. I suppose its AC is on the low side compared to other epic-level creatures, so it won't be to hard to whittle it back down again. Just enjoy taking 40d6 fire damage every few rounds as it regenerates itself.

Shirokinukatsukami

The shirokinukatsukami (shiro-kinu-katsu-kami) are weird protective spirits from the world of sleep. It's a colourful combination of animals, as large as a tiger. Its long trunk and sharp claws are meant to catch and rend evil spirits and bad dreams.The creature's bizarre appearance may be a result of it being born of a surreal jumble of dreams. The shirokinukatsukami is a powerful guardian, possessing many protective and healing spells, and is capable of minor resurrections.

Even when invoked as a guardian, a shirokinu katsukami may not choose to fully reveal itself. It may appear riding on or in the form of dream mist, or simply appear to their ward as they sleep.

The shirokinukatsukami is D&D's version of the baku, a chinese and japanese folkloric creature. The creature's weird appearance may have been inspired by the tapir. Regardless of whether it's inspired by this animal or not, the actual Japanese word for tapir is baku and some modern representations of the baku show it as a tapir instead of a elephant-tiger hybrid.

The name shirokinukatsukami is a bit weird, when I don't really find any evidence of it being used as a name for the baku. But a little research into the name revealed that while not the true name of the creature, it actually has a kind of sweet poetry to it. People who speak Japanese may feel free to correct me on this, but I think that they name roughly translates to Victorious Spirit of the White Silk (the white silk probably being bedsheets.)

Storm Giant

Among the most powerful giants are the storm giants. They rise over other giants both magically and in stature, and even the weakest of this kind can easily set itself up as a local deity. All storms giants can call down lightning and manipulate the weather in any terrain, but prefer to lead isolated lives on mountains. Storms giants are (usually) a peaceful race, preferring lonely lives and silence. Worship is sometimes forced upon them, since nearby settlements of lesser creatures may give them offerings in exchange for bountiful weather.

The description of storm giants in the Monster Manual is a bit confusing to me. For example, they're generally green skinned, with some of them being purple. I guess storm clouds can turn a weird shade of yellow sometimes, but I haven't seen any green ones. Though with some research I've learned that there are greenish storm clouds -- usually ones that contain hail or will produce severed thunder or tornadoes. Storm giants also have water breathing, but they're neither aquatic creatures or live in an aquatic environment (they live in warm mountains). Maybe it's because of floods?

I know the storm giants of D&D are largely inspired by Greco-Roman and Scandinavian mythology, but I've gone for a more Eastern look with this. It's ripped off of inspired by a group of oni-like people from the game Okaminden who live in the cloud-city of Thundercloud, who wear tiger-patterned robes and skirts. By the way, I love the Okami games. They just so pretty.

Sybillic Guardian

The Sybillic Guaridan is a psychic archon, being allies (and occasionally summoned servants) of psionic heroes. Like other archons, they dwell in Celestia, training in the arts of battle to do war with the infernal and abyssal hordes. However, these particular archons and other psionic creatures believe that a different war is coming, though magical divination can't actually confirm this. Perhaps their war will be one with the creatures of the Far Realm, or whatever horrifying races live beyond that.

You know what I always find difficult? Any aspect of graphic design. I'm fine with illustration, laying an image, character design, colour... But when it comes to setting up fonts and similar bits of text, it really gives me a headache. This also applies to things like runes and glyphs, since they're an infuriating combination of illustration and graphic design. It'd difficult to make magical writing look legit.

But I think I finally hit on something, since I'm actually fairly happy with the glyphs in this image, which I generated using a magic square. Each glyph means something, so if anybody wants to figure out what they mean, look to Saturn.

Centaur

Centaurs are a noble race of beast-men who, as in their appearance, straddle a line between humanity and animal savagery. Their trust is hard to earn; their wrath is cheap indeed!

Sorry for the lateness of this! Busy work and busy weekends make Joe a tired boy. Also apologies for the boobs on display here, I just felt like 99% of the fantasy centaurs I see are bare-chested, muscled males and I felt like switching up the gender - the result is something like Walt Disney's (planned) topless centaurs for Fantasia meets Merle from Escaflowne or some other borderline-furry catgirl cheesecake from my youth. I'm not much fond of furry art (to put it lightly), but for some reason centaurs and mermaids seem to avoid my distaste.

In any case, I've been looking at a lot of drawings of girls lately (Chris Sanders, Alex Ahad) and I felt like trying my hand at a pretty girl - I think the hair is a little boring, but I like the face and the rest of it. Maybe I'll change up the hairstyle later - for now, I'll just post it. Feel free to berate me in the comments for my possible idle sexism / corruption of America's youth etc etc. :)

- Joe

PS be sure to look at it full-size! I might put up some detail images tomorrow.

Petal

Petals are tiny fey creatures who can sometimes prove problematic to adventurers (but rarely intentionally). They inhabit secluded areas in temperate forests, and their chief reaction to travelers of any sort is to sing to them. This would, it has to be said, be less of a problem if the magical voices of Petals didn't put the listener into a drowsy, peaceful sleep.

While this might seem at first mischievous, they consider it in fact an act of utter benevolence - is there any creature alive who doesn't deserve a little more rest in life? Afterwards, they tend to their slumbering "victims" by removing their amour (it can't be comfy to rest in all those silly metal plates!) and weaving them soft garments of leaves, which the hapless adventurers wake up in.

The description of the Petal is so sweet I can't hardly stand it. I struggle a lot with the details on these lately - I want to add lines to define things like the mouth, fingers, but it's hard to make them not jar against the airbrushy shading. I'm pleased with the colours, though.

- Joe