Brixashulty

Brixashulty are a specific breed of large goats kept by halflings for their milk, wool and to be used as riding beasts. They also make excellent guard animals, as they're incredibly distrustful of strangers, are armored by thick fur and have powerful butting attacks.

The Brixashulty is a completely non-magical animal. It's essentially just a goat with a weird name, an alternate mount for Small PCs who don't want to have a riding dog or pony. I haven't found any stats in the official books for goat or sheep (though there are goat-based monsters), so you could probably use this for a vaguely ornery but ordinary goat.

Sheep/goat mounts are pretty common in fantasy tropes for the smaller races, dwarves, halflings and the like. It's the basic mount for dwarves in World of Warcraft and the Kithkin ride them in Magic: The Gathering (technically they're springjacks, some kind of goat-bunny hybrid stats plz). It makes sense, with goats being associated with pastoral or rugged environments, which the smaller races are associated with. Of course, nobody rides goats for real, though there are the occasional novelties for children and apparently they make decent pack animals.

Carcass Eater

The Carcass Eater is a small animal a rat and a hound. As an animal whose main diet is comprised of carrion, its common haunts are graveyards, battlegrounds, abbatoirs and any other sort of place that would be home to heaps of rotting flesh. The Carcass Eater has a sharp sense of smell and can detect the smallest drop of blood, the scent of which drives it into a shark-like feeding frenzy. Its jaws are especially big, useful for tearing hunks of meat and breaking bones.

This was a blind image, given to me by Joe. I was kinda panicky when he gave it to me when I saw that it was an animal type creature. Animals tend to be, well, actual real creatures that either exist or have existed in the past; creatures of little intelligence and no magical ability. Sometimes there's bigger than usual. I was worried that he'd given me an actual animal and was worried that I was going to represent a real creature in a way that didn't represent it in reality. Which may have been interesting, now that I think about it, like how giraffes were drawn when the description was "camel-like creature with leopard spots".

Zeuglodon

A Zeuglodon is a giant marine creature with a great crocodile-like maw and long-flexible body. Despite its vaguely reptilian shape, the Zeuglodon is a real-life ancestor of the whale. Like many whales, these fellas can be found primarily in cold waters. Despite their impressive teeth, the tail of the Zeuglodon is especially dangerous, being used to stun prey and break apart ships.

You know what I find tolerable? Model-building. You know what I find incredibly frustrating? Photography. The raft of the model was especially fun to make, which  is made from various sticks from around where I live. I decided to do this to challenge myself with some different materials, and was a good deal inspired by the model-work of my friend Grethe Bentsen.

Giant Banded Lizard

The Giant Banded Lizard is not a creature of legendary intellect. It doesn't plot; it has no minions; it doesn't hoard treasure; it has no magical abilities. That's because it's literally a big stripey desert lizard of huge size. But it'll still rip your shizzle because this here's a CR 7 creature with a nasty poison attack.

I like to think that those two guys in the bottom have been sent on a quest by the cooking lady so she can make some really lovely striped omelettes. Thems will be some good omelettes.

This monster's from Sandstorm, one of my favourite settings, as I've mentioned before. The monster section can be a little bit disappointing, since it can get a bit samey. Dried up undead monster with dehydrating attack, monster with sand attack, some sandworms, such and such... But there are some other quite interesting beasties there which I shall do in the future.

Dire Weasel

A few kobolds are perched on the fence of the outdoor corral, partially to make sure that the dire weasels don't stray too far should they escape, but mostly to giggle at Bik's attempts to break in an especially lively wild doe.

I know what some of you may be thinking. "Dire weasels? Well that's just silly." Well, they have dang near dire anything and I'm suprised there isn't a template. Or maybe I just haven't found it yet.

Dire weasels are to kobolds as dogs and horses are to humans. They make good mounts well-suited for tunnel-dwelling creatures such as themselves, and are notorious for their persistance in battle. Like a normal weasels and stoats, their battle-tactic amounts to hang on to the enemy and not let go until they die. Unlike normal weasels and stoats, they drain blood (mechanically translating to 1d4 points of Con damage).

What I'm saying is try to pick it off with arrows before it wriggles down a hole and don't get bit.

Had lots of fun watching videos of weasels and rodeos as reference for this image.

Rat Swarm

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?

Terror Bird

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.

Lucky the Goblin and Bones the Wolf

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.

Megaloceros

The Megaloceros is a gigantic deer that wanders in herds over the frozen tundra. Its likeness is found carved out of bone, stone and wood in many towns and tribes, since its commonly used as a totem creature. Atop its skull are two massive horns, its primary means of defence. If you are not trampled underfoot, the deer will gore you with its horns, lift you up with them, and toss you away. Their skulls are coveted as ornaments, and live ones make powerful mounts.


This is the first chance either of us have gotten to do something that properly goes under the animal catergory. Most animal-like creatures in D&D have some kind of magical power; anything that falls under the category of an animal is just your average, mundane critter. Not something that's really meant for a fantasy art blog. We have more interesting things to draw than a dolphin or a badger.

But these guys are pretty exceptional. A megaloceros is an actual prehistoric creature (the Frostburn book has a lot of those) that roamed the world when it was a little bit colder and animals were a little bit bigger. A simpler name for these guys are Irish Elk, even though they aren't really Irish. The skeletons for these are amazing to stand next to.

Roc

The Roc is a gigantic bird, "almost too big to be believed", that makes large animals such as horses, elephants, and small whales its prey. I love the idea of ordinary creatures blown up to extraordinary sizes, and whilst there isn't anything especially glamorous about the Roc, it's nice in a simple sort of way.

There's this picture of one I find really funny where it's holding a hapless whale in its big claws, so I thought I'd take that idea of this gigantic predator and make it a little more dynamic.