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.

Blanca's Tumblr

LeShay

The LeShay are to elves what elves are to humans. Which is what this game needed: a more hoity-toity elf. It's possible that LeShay are even the true ancestors of elves, having seeded the Material Plane with their progeny. They're adept shapeshifters, able to appear as any humanoid, but their true form is that of a white elf-like creature with deep black eyes. And despite the unsettling appearance, looking at them give one a strange sense of longing and camraderie. 

LeShay are not put off by locked doors. They will get in.

LeShay cannot be stopped by armour. They will get through.


I've been a little ehhhhhh about drawing lately. Artist's block. It happens somethings. Nothing I've drawn recently I've especially liked in anything beyond the thumbnail stage. The Halite animation I did was pretty much because I just couldn't make myself design and draw something new, so just animate something that somebody else has designed. Sometimes this loosens up my brain, sometimes it doesn't. I'm still kinda stuck, but it'll stop eventually.

I've been using Manga Studio for a while but mostly stuck to the same pen (the turnip pen does really nice crispy lines). After several attempts attempts on this I accepted that no matter what I did I wasn't going to be happy with it as a proper illustration. So experiment a bit with other styles of colouring. The colouring in this is mostly done with the flat marker tool for a more smudgy look. It's probably not something that I'm gonna add to my usual drawing style probably, but at least it looks kinda interesting.

Also I treated the LeShay like a little bit as a fairy fantasy version of what the Engineers were in the Prometheus movie. The illustration in the Epic Level Handbook is a little bit boring. Just a grey elf in some brown clothes. But I liked how the description had a bit of that alien-y fairy feeling.

(Not included in the image, but these dudes can manifest +10 keen brilliant energy weapons out of their own life force.)


Blanca's Tumblr

Gray Jester

Sometimes a circus appears in town. The music is joyous, there's laughter in the air, the sweet smell of butter and candied fruit. But the colour of the tents are muted, the animals in their cages are listless, and, despite the capering and smiles, there's something disingenuous about the entertainers. The ringleader, an especially tall lead clown, is the happiest of the lot, and his laughter and smiles ring true. Something doesn't feel right, but the show is good and the crowd has never found itself laughing so much. People return to their homes giggling and exhausted.

As silently as is appeared, the next day the circus is gone. People lie in bed, tired, faces aching from last night's smiles, and feeling strangely downhearted. It feels like after last night, they'll never feel that kind of happiness again, that every other joke they see will never be as funny. After some weeks, some people recover their spirits, but most don't. One night there's a laughing shadow in the streets. The next day, those listless few are gone. They're never seen again.

--

The Gray Jester is one of those fey creatures that prefers people to the forest. It's attracted to the feelings of joy humans are capable of, craving smiles and the sound of laughter, and strives to create those feelings in others. Of course, laughter is what the Jester feeds on. If it's antics don't work, it's fine. Tasha's Hideous Laughter can do the work for it. Its touch and its scepter can transfer the spell, and allow the Jester to feel on joy (leading to Charisma drain).

A spooooky creature for a spooooky month. I've always been kinda annoyed by the scary clown trope. Not the cliché-ness of it, but how some scary clowns go really over the top with the scariness with sharp teeth and tattered clothes and bloodstains and such. I don't find clowns scary, though I do admit they can be repulsive in that weird visceral way (especially Lou Jacobs; that head ain't right).

Having now attempted to draw a scary clown without trying to use those typical evil clown type markers, and I can say how difficult it is to do it. Thinking about Pennywise from the original It miniseries, part of what made him so scary was the jolly brightness of his outfit combined with Tim Curry's performance. With the new It, I really rolled by eyes and how spooky they'd purposely made him look. The parts were Bill Skarsgård got to goof it up like a real clown were gold, though. More of that and less screaming and running at the camera. Great acting on his part.

Anyway, turns out the performance aspect is really key, which you can't really communicate with a static image. This illustration was really tough and went though lots and lots different versions. My sketchbook has pages of jolly clowns now, and I've got two more files on my computer where I got really far ahead in the drawing before scrapping it. Another difficulty was trying to keep 2017's It design out of my head. The first version really ended up looking a lot like Fleischer's Koko the Clown cartoon.

Long post short, went for a pierrot look because I really like that design outfit.




PS. Do Gray Jesters update their look with passing time? Do they go from jester with a magic sceptre to a circus clown with an evil rubber chicken? Standup comedians with a mic?


Blanca’s Tumblr

Frostwind Virago

This year's Winter-themed creature and the last image of 2015.

The frostwind virago is one of those high-end fey that you really really don't want to run into. She is the anthropomorphic representation of the beauty, danger and caprice of winter. They live in cold mountains, though will travel is the cold weather permits it. Their favourite passtime is enthralling warm-blooded creatures to torture with their frost magic until the unfortunate victim freezes to death. Even those who aren't charmed by the virago's magic or are immune to the ice she summons, she can exert a strange mental torture on them. Those near enough to the virago feel their minds seize up and slow as if that is freezing over.

Ah, the return to the frosty woman. This is a theme I've visited a few times before, namely the snow weird and ice weird. For those images I focused pretty much entirely on snowflakes, frost and ice as my visual themes. And it's still present in the frostwind virago, but this time I permitted myself to look outside that for inspiration. The main inspiration behind this image is actually the snowy owl (Hedgewig, for those of you who remember Harry Potter). I went a little bit off script with the virago too. The description makes a big deal out of her having blue eyes, but she's already so blue and I wanted to give her yellow owl eyes. She also doesn't have horns, but I wanted her to be kind of a companion piece to the verdant prince.

Interesting etymology behind the word "virago". It's one of those words whose name has gotten twisted over time. It used to mean "strong-spirited woman", but now it means "loud-mouthed, stubborn bitch". Kinda like how the word "hussy" used to mean "good housewife who takes care of her man and her kids" became "filthy slut who wrecks marriages for fun". Funny how history finds a way to turn positive words into negative ones, isn't it.

Bisan

The bisan is a jungle dryad, specifically the dryad of camphor trees. But this chick's more dangerous than your run of the mill dryad. While other tree nymphs with wrap you up with roots, charm you into pretty please don't cut down my tree, and then stab you some, the bisan will wake up the trees around her to beat you up. Then she'll turn into a wasp and sting the holy bazoozoos out of you. That's what you get.

The bisan, like the bajang, is a Malaysian spirit. Walter William Skeat talks about it briefly in Malay Magic (I should really buy that book), where you get like maybe two pages of info. Plenty of elbow room for Wizards to transform a cicada spirit that's maybe female into a sexy lady who is also a wasp. Honestly, if I lived in a jungle where you got super loud cicadas with wingspans of up to 20cm I would totally say that's a spirit and make it some offerings so it doesn't attack me.

Bajang

The Bajang is an evil forest spirit which looks like a tiny person. Then they turn into a jungle kitty. Then they poison you. Bad juju.

I did a bunch of research on this particular creature because stuff in Oriental Adventures tends to be inspired from actual creatures. I actually prefer that creature a bit more to the statted one. Doing the research was actually a bit tricky because a good amount of it seemed to directly reference D&D or were very short/misinformed, but I eventually found some stuff in Malay Magic by Richard Skeat and some other sources. So get ready for a history lesson y'all.

Bajangs are one of several Malaysian ghouls related to miscarriages and stillbirths. Bajangs are evil spirits found in dead male babies, usually risen by wizards and enslaved as familiar spirits. They are used to cause disease (epilepsy, hallucinations, etc) and are usually seen in the form of a polecat (called a musang). Now this last bit is where a good amount of misinformation starts, since a lot of my other sources seem to think polecat = regular wild cat of some sort when they're a bit closer to weasels. So while Malaysia does have a bunch of wild felines, the legend of the Bajang may have referred to a civet, called musang in South East Asian languages. But civets are weird big leopard-weasel things, so I can see why it's just easier to simplify it to jungle cat for Western audiences.

So I can see why there was a lot of shifting around with the folklore when it came to writing a D&D entry. When you're playing D&D you don't especially want to think about dead babies that want to eat other babies (and fetuses). But I don't see why they have to be classified as fey creatures rather than undead or outsiders. In my research I found maybe two references to them being jungle spirits (and even then those might just be Bajangs who were able to escape their masters). The Dryad-like tie to a tree is also something I wasn't able to confirm, though this may be a spin-off from Bajangs being trapped by their masters in bamboo tubes or chests.

Just make it an outsider that looks a bit like a baby. And that's also a were-civet. There you go.

Shaedling

Shaedlings are to pixies what drow are to elves. When back when those elves who would become drow split away to follow Lolth the Queen of the Demonweb Pits, so did some pixies, and they too got "blessings" for their loyalty. Fey being closer to the primality of nature, Lolth's gifts are closer to her spidery nature.

A shaedling is much larger than a pixie, who never break the three-foot mark, and are almost as tall as humans when standing straight. Their stomachs are grotesquely distended and filled with silk made of shadow-stuff, called shadow gossamer. The gossamer are is drawn and quickly woven into a small object, normally a weapon or armour, which is of extreme lightness and masterful craftwork. These objects are inherently linked to the shaedling, and will dissolve after a few seconds upon being relinquished.

This was interesting to draw, though I found it a bit difficult to pose the shaedling in a way that was dynamic. It still isn't dynamic, but I like it more now than I did when I first started sketching it. I don't much care for drawing wings, despite how many of the things I've done have them (it is a standard fantasy trait). I did enjoy trying to figure out a way to draw the patterns on a dragonfly wing in a way that wouldn't overcomplicate the image.

Nereid

Nereids are sea nymphs, the ocean being their usual habitat when they're not in the Elemental Plane of Water, their true home. Much like Dryads, the tree nymphs, are bound to their tree to survive, the Nereid's life is bound to their shawl, a floating material made of surf. Being separated from their shawls for too long results in the death of the Nereid, so stealing one is a certain (if cruel) way to temporarily gain their allegiance.

But the Nereid is a shy creature with a host of defensive abilities. As water faeries from an Elemental Plane, their bodies seem to be made out of shimmering water, making them incredibly difficult to see when submerged. They can also control the water surrounding them, alter currents and summon Water Elementals to protect them. Her final defense is an especially nasty and last resort one. The Nereid can kill with a kiss, filling the lungs of the victim with water so that they drown. You shouldn't have tried to take her shawl.

Actually a creature from Greek myth, as many nymphy creatures tend to be. While the word dryad refers to how they are bound to oak trees (drys), their name actually means that they are daughters of Nereus (50 in total, plus the son Nerites), an ancient sea god. There's some confusion between them and the Oceanids, daughters of Oceanus who are also sea nymphs (3000 in total, along with 3000 brothers --Potamoi-- river spirits). Calypso, of The Odyssey fame, is a Nereid or an Oceanid  depending on the source. Regardless of parentage, sea nymphs tended to be minor protective spirits to fishermen, sailors and the like.

Verdant Prince

Verdant Princes are wily fey creatures who use guileful magic to manipulate themselves into positions of power. Uniquely, however, a Verdant Prince is endowed with the ability to swear a magical oath or geas (which it will typically engineer in its own favour) which compels a certain bargain to be kept. Both parties are affected by the spell equally - if the oath is broken, or someone fails to keep the agreement, the offending party suffers a hideous curse, wasting both body and mind, only ending when the target dies. Verdant Princes appear to use this ability generously, even wantonly, but they are nearly always acting out of self-interest, and remember that whenever one offers you something that seems too good to be true, it probably is.

I'm pretty fond of Faustian pacts in fiction and Verdant Princes provide a great example of this within the D&D system. The person to break the deal sustains a horrifying -6 penalty to all ability scores until the oath is somehow restored, and their "partner" is magically made constantly aware of the oathbreaker's whereabouts for the duration (you're looking at a Wish or Miracle to circumvent this, it's strong stuff). The lure is always there for a wily PC to engage the Prince in a Death Note-style battle of wits and bluffing, and if you come out on top you know you've got a pretty powerful fairy spirit under your thumb. But expect treachery from both creature and DM, as these things tend to end badly for the greedy. Oh well! You know what they say: "Lente, lente, curritae noctis equi!" Aheh... huh.

Check out the full-size image and this detail version, I think it looks way better than the smaller thumbnail. The shape of the horns where they meet the head reminds me of Midna, and I think I ripped this guy off subconsciously from a Dota2 character. Whoops! gg vevlo

Shimmerling Swarm

An individual shimmerling in a fairly unintelligent, harmless creature. Heck, a shimmerling swarm is a fairly unintelligent, harmless conglomeration of creatures.

Unless they're angry.

At first, the shimmerling swarm seems to be a cloud of pulsating rainbow light that can just about be seen between the trees. The light is strangely alluring. Hypnotic even. And it's not until you find yourself envelopped by that bright blinding light that you feel the sickening hum of vibrating insects wings and the splintery pain of tiny teeth and fingers biting any inch of exposed flesh they can find.

Fortunately, the shimmerlings primarily subsist on pollen. Which is yet another reason to leave the forest alone.

Here is my New Years-themed image, though perhaps you could say its more a wintery, Christmasy kind of image. Inspired by the fireworks, fairy lights (eh? eh?) and wrapping paper. I tried by hand at a tessellating pattern, a la Escher. Needless to say, it's not quite as seamless at the Escher ones, but it'll do.

When I think of the shimmerling swarms, the image that mostly comes to mind is the fairies from Disney's Fantasia, the ones that perform a part of the Nutcracker suite while putting dew on flowers, turning leaves orange and freezing water. Albeit the shimmerlings as statted are probably little more than fairy-shaped bees.

REDUX MONTH: Spriggan

Here's my second image of Redux Month, the Spriggan! You can see the old version here (if you wanna).

I faffed for ages with this one and I'm sort of lukewarm on it, but I still like it better than the original. I actually hate looking at the old one because at the time I was experimenting a lot with this attempt at scratchy black linework that looks kinda brushy in imitation of artists like Nate Powell and Paul Pope, but I could never get it looking right because my basic drawing skills aren't up to it. I guess I quite like the sheer amount of hair he develops after "hulking out" (Spriggans, in case you didn't know, can grow in size from a small gnome-like creature to a gigantic gorilla monster) - here the change in appearance is less extreme - he just sort of thickens and his hair becomes a little tuftier. Looking between them I think my approach to linework is better in general now, I feel like I don't have to "fake" a lot of the things I used to.

The dude here is modeled on a gibbon, which are my favourite apes. 

Sorry about the slow posting this month, I'm working full-time on a commercial job and I'm trying really hard to keep the quality up so I don't feel like I've regressed!!

- Joe

REDUX MONTH: Satyr

Sup peeps.

Dungeons and Drawings has been up and about as a blog for three years now. And while the blog has 200+ pics of them and we try quite hard to make all of 'em good, the truth is that there's quite a few that we feel we could've done a better job on. But since we like to do a different image every week, that stops us from just doing the same monster over and over until we're satisfied with it.

That's what anniversaries are for.

So for the next four weeks we're gonna be looking at the images we've been unhappy with and redo them.

My first choice for Redux Month is the Satyr, the goat-legged creature of Greek mythology. While I'm not as unhappy with that image as I am with others, it's one I felt I could definitely do better. The old version seemed a little too rough to me (I was using nib pens and real art materials aren't something I'm especially good with) and the colours didn't seem as well thought out, resulting in, I felt, an overall quite dull image.

The newer Satyr is inspired by the Valais Blackneck, a really awesome breed of goat, half black, half white. The kids are especially cute. They look like they're wearing clothes!

Lunar Ravager

Lunar Ravagers are out and about on days where the moon is bright and visible in the sky. They come down riding on moonbeams, nine feet tall and pale, wielding crescent-shaped weapons. They come down in groups and track the first worthy creature they come across, which could be anything from a wolf, a giant hellbeast or just an unfortunate drunk that got lost on his way home. Nature aids them in their grim hunt, leaving no trace more than the blood of their prey. They take their hunting trophies back with them to their hunting lodge on the moon. To return with no quarry would be shameful.

Lunar Ravagers are one of several D&D monsters based off the folkloric-slash-mythological stories of the Wild Hunt. The basic gist of it is that at certain times fairies or devils come out to be jerks and hunt-slash-kill any innocent people they come across. These certain times can be quite variable from story to story. Sometimes they're only out on certain days of the year, sometimes it has to do which the phases of the moon, and sometimes it's just a case of just don't go out at night. The Wild Hunt thing appears in the folklore of many regions of Europe, but I'm sure other areas have stories that follow a similar path.

I've based the design of the Ravager on a couple of things. The costume is based on old Hun warrior outfits. There's something quite reserved and convienient about their clothing, but still looks cool. Also they look kinda cozy and warm, and I imagine it gets pretty chilly on the moon. Then the noseless face, receded hairline and dark eyes are there to make it look alien (specifically, like a Grey). The last thing is the general subject of the image, inspired by photographs of hunters posing proudly on their felled prey.

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

Uldra

The Uldra are a race of short Fey creatures common in colder climates. Although fierce by necessity in a harsh environment, the Uldra are highly concerned by ecology and the wildlife with whom their share their territory. The other notable trait of the Uldra is their love of decorative hats - with an especially high regard for height and pointiness. Since the Uldra are naturally resistant to the cold, their clothing is primitive (and in Summer is rarely worn at all), but it is rare indeed to see one not wearing a hat.

Hope y'all are having a splendid Christmas this year, gang - Blanca and I have accordingly illustrated choices from the always-chilly Frostburn book. Actually, hearing about the snowstorms in the US I'd imagine quite a lot of people could do with seeing less of Old Man Winter right about now.

 As you might imagine, the above drawing is a result of me being away from my usual art stuff (CS6, wacom tablet) and for once manning up and using real implements. It's a shame I can't colour it here (well I could but it would take too long) but it was fun to make. As a mostly digital artist you forget about how permanent marks can be when you're making a finished piece. I saved my butt in a couple of places with white-out (rescuer of many a drawing).

Anyway, I don't think the feel of it is a million miles from my digital stuff, which is what I was aiming for. Consistency is professional, innit!

Ocean Strider

The Ocean Strider is a sea-bound guardian. They appear as 20-foot tall humanoids with rubbery orca-like skins that walk on the surface of the water. The very sight of this black and white colossus walking towards your boat, wreathed in fog and flanked by dire sharks, whales and giant quid is enough to strike fear into the scurviest of sea dogs.

It's a little unclear whether the protection they give their spot of the ocean is altruistic or fierce territoriality. What are you doing on my property, and all that business. Any creature that doesn't belong is that part of the ocean is quickly seen to. So any boats that have the misfortune of being there can expect some kind of encounter with these guys. Fortunately, the promise to keep fishing to a minimum, avoid dumping, and getting out as soon as possible is all they ask. But if you try to fight them or sail by, you can look forward to terrible weather, attacks by elementals, having your ship sunk and your crew eaten by sea creatures. Also they reeeeally don't like anyone who wants to plunder the ocean depths.

I really like orcas. They're one of the more striking sea-mammals, thanks to their monochromatic markings. I also really like fey, the balance between nature protector and tricky little jerk. So obviously I really like this creature.

However, the stat block is kinda confusing. So they're Huge sized creatures, yes? Then why do they only have 19 STR? I know that Ocean Strider's are fey, which are always more about trickiness than brute strength, but this is a fey that's half killer whale and it likes to sink ships. For reference, an orca as statted out in the books has 27 STR. The description says they normally wear mithril armor, but that's not taken into account in the AC. They wield Gargatuan weapons, but I don't think the numbers are quite right (doesn't a Gargantuan falchion deal 4d6, not 2d8 damage?). And their CR is 18, but they seem a little too weak for that. I guess they get a couple of CR points for the extra damage they can do with their summoning spells and the fact that if they get you in the water, that's probably gonna be it for you. I don't know if I'm just misunderstanding the stat block though. I still like this creature though.

Kelpie

The Kelpie is one of those dangerous creatures of murky water. Like the nixie and kappa, they're creatures based on actual myth, a warning to others to avoid certain trecharous ponds, rivers and swamps. This creature is from Celtic mythology and, unlike the other two spirits, is wholly malicious. Its normal form is that of a pale horse, dirty with pond scum. It charms people with magic or with an attrative humanoid form to go into the water with it, then drowns them. They might even pose as someone pretending to drown, taking advantage of the good will of others.

A favourite creature of mine, not just of D&D, but of mythology in general. I read a story about a Scottish that put a bridle on a kelpie, which bound it to his will, and forced it to build a castle for him. When it was done, he let the kelpie go. Which was a dumb idea, because the second it was let go, the kelpie cursed him his land to have bad luck. There's a campaign in that story.

D&D doesn't give the creature a bestow curse spell, but it can drive people crazy with feelings of overwhelming sadness, so that's kind of a curse.

Satyr

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.

Hybsil

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.

Wendigo

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.