Spectral Mage

Okay so you can have ghost, but what if the ghost was, like, magic? I mean, I guess you could just tack on some spellcaster levels onto a standard ghost. Or you could use the somewhat superfluous spectral mage template!

Honestly there isn't that much difference between the two types of ghosties. Except maybe that spectral mages are a bit more consistent as poltergeists since they don't have to take breaks between levitation spells.

Mostly I like the idea of a wizard spending just, like, ages trying to figure out the elixir of life, or how to become a lich or worm that walks, only for them to accidentally blow themselves up and become a ghost.

Blanca’s Tumblr

Hopping Vampire

 

Here's Mr. Vampire himself! Mr. Hopping Vampire. Don't laugh, coz he'll get ya.

So while they're called vampires and have the teeth to back it up, they're not your typical suck-your-blood types. They're psychic vampires, breathing on you and draining your chi. The big ol' claws are just a good way to make you stay put while they do that sweet chi draining. 

Also, unlike regular vampires, they don't have that whole shape-shifting thing to make themselves look sexy. It's the moldy rotting corpse look that they've got going on. Not that they could lay some seduction on you with words either, because they're not too bright either. These dudes are also completely blind, and detect their prey by sensing their breath. But they're reeeeaaallly good at sensing breath, can feel it from quite far away, so you'd better put some distance between you and Mr. Vampire.

So that should make them easy enemies, yeah? Well, sunlight doesn't harm them, so you can't just whip aside some curtains or come back to their hidey-holes after sunrise to kill them. They'll be awake and they'll be waiting. Or maybe they'll just be following you. And don't let them get you with the claws either, because pretty soon after you'll feel your muscles seizing up until you can only move at a hop-hop-hop.

Hop-hop-happy Halloween to you.

Blanca’s Tumblr

Mummy

The elvish archaeologists who broke open the tomb of Ilexandra, Fifth Mage-regent of the Riverlands, were overjoyed at their find. As according to custom, her body was found cut into pieces, wrapped in spider-silk cloth and interred in five jars alongside her royal scepter - attuned with a spell allowing control over lesser undead - and an ornate jade death-mask carved with five eyes to denote her lineage. They supposed the discovery - complete as it was, and perfectly preserved - would surely be hailed as one of the greatest of their age. 

The chief archaeologist's journal entry for the day notes the faint aroma of a lingering magic spell over the long-dead queen: "Most likely a charm to prevent decay, and perhaps discourage interference by the giant subterranean mole-rats of the region."

The journal was found almost a week later by a search party, amongst a pile of broken equipment, torn clothing and inexplicably rusted weapons found just outside the tomb. No bodies were ever found, but since the Old Elvish words for "KEEP OUT" had been daubed on the great stone door (apparently in fresh elf blood), they never actually set foot inside ever again.

Joe's Tumblr

Pennaggolan

The pennaggolan is a type of almost exclusively female vampires. Like most vampires, they are nocturnal, but are immune to the dangers of sunlight. By day, the pennaggolan appears as a normal woman, but at night the head detaches itself from the body, dragging its entrails along with it and flies away. It often stalks lonely roads and houses, throttling travellers and feeding on their blood.

The best way to defeat a pennaggolan in to find its vacant body. The body can be destroyed, leaving the vampire permanently exposed in its gory from. Alternatively, the body (currently hollow) can be filled with thorns or broken glass, so that the pennaggolan's guts are lethally shredded when it tries to re-attach itself.

This creature come from Malaysian mythology. In the Malaysian tales, the pennaggolan (alternate names pennanggalan, hantu pennangal, balah-balah...) is usually a midwife. Some legends I've found say that the midwives make deals with spirits for supernatural powers, but fail to hold up their part of the bargain and get cursed to become these monsters. The pennagolan perches on the roof of a house containing children, pregnant women or women in labour, and feeds on their blood with an invisible tongue. Like in other vampire tales, the victim eventually contracts a wasting disease and dies.

When the pennaggolan returns home, she soaks her guts in vinegar to shrink them, so she can squeeze back into her body. Getting out is easy, but you try squeezing lungs and metres of intestines back in through a narrow neck-hole. Since the darkness can hide the face of a pennaggolan, sometimes the best way to tell if a woman is a monster or not is if she smells really strongly of vinegar.

There are a lot of variants of this monsters across East Asia. The Phillipines have the manananggal (detaches its upper body from its lower body), Bali has the leyak (way scarier face, also feeds on corpses), and Thailand has the krause (cursed with hunger; feeds on blood, flesh and poop).

I remember first reading about this monster when I was really young. I think it was maybe in some spooky Halloween edition of a kids magazine or something. I was quite struck by how weird it was. And also the whole protecting yourself by sticking a bunch of thorns and pointy leaves around you window. Them dangling guts don't wanna get tangled up in that mess.

Pretty reminiscent of the vargouille.


Blanca’s Tumblr

Ghoul

Sometimes ghouls get lumped together with zombies. They're dead, they eat flesh, they're just a bit meaner, right? Well, zombies happen because of external circumstances (spells, curses...) and are mindless, so that's not right. They're not the same as revenants, another species of intelligent undead, since they're not motivated by revenge, anger or any sort of emotion.


The ghoul rises from the dead because it's hungry.

Those who practice cannibalism risk becoming ghouls. Now, this seems like an easier path to immortality than, say, discovering the philosopher's stone or going through all the tedious rituals to become a lich. Just eat a few orphans and homeless people and that's eternity for you, baby. An eternity of being hungry. But if you're the sort of person that would happily chow down on your fellow man, then you're probably not the type to be disappointed in the results. You don't get magical powers, but you get some poisonous claws so that's neat I guess?

Did a buncha research on ghouls, because I know they're a folkloric beast that's undergone quite a bit of transformation over time. I already knew they were an Arabic beastie (a ghûl), with them appearing in the Arabian Nights stories -- spooky monsters what hide in graveyards and eat corpses. What I didn't know is that that version of the ghouls are a mistranslation-slash-fabrication by the translators of the original texts. Early ghouls were more like demons or evil jinn that lived out in the desert and lured travelers to kill them. They were also often feminine, shapeshifters, and used as boogeymen to scare kids. Pretty much a generic monster that appears in every culture in the world.

But the Westernized version has stuck so that the ghoul as a skulking male/genderless grave-robber functions as today's definition. Lovecraft went in a bit of an interesting thing with them, making them appear less and less human the more time the ghoul has spent unalive.

Happy Spookoween, peeps.

Blanca’s Tumblr

Zombie

Zombies are perhaps the quintessential undead. Their ubiquity is due in part to their flexibility - anything that lives, dies. Anything that dies, can be raised as a zombie. Zombie humans, zombie dogs, zombie ogres, zombie dragons; all are potential foes when facing a necromancer of sufficient power.

In terms of necromantic finesse, however, zombies are pretty near the bottom of the barrel. An extremely quick fix to a deeply profound problem (death), they are often little more than hastily-recruited servants, capable of a narrow portfolio of limited tasks (such as biting adventurers, or carrying trays) and fall apart at the slightest pressure. Outside of amateur necromancy (where zombies and zombie-like efforts are drearily commonplace), zombies are rarely used except as a "meat shield" (grisly literal in this case) to absorb an attack, or as a swarm to overwhelm a weakened foe.

First post for me since the Colossus, which was ages ago! Oy. I actually did an earlier version of this but I didn't like it so I completely did it over. Maybe I'll post the other one sometime. It wasn't very good, though. I think both Blanca & I avoided zombies as a Dungeons & Drawings subject for ages because... zombies are quite ubiquitous as a subject of illustration? I hate saying stuff like that, but... I don't know. You just see them kind of a lot, I guess. My theory is that they're fun to draw because you can make them as ugly/deformed as you like and they don't look weird (you don't have to sweat proportions too much), and they are quite well served by relentlessly adding detail (wrinkles, wounds etc) - which also serve to mask any structural inaccuracies. Case in point - I only realised at the end of drawing this picture that the zombie's right foot is backwards. In any other humanoid creature that would be grounds for another tiresome redraw, but with the zombie - you can just explain it away by saying something like "oh, this zombie was just assembled poorly". Brilliant!

Anyway, Happy Halloween y'all!

- Joe

Allip

Ghosts are created when the person's death happens when there's unfinished business in the world of the living and/or under especially traumatic circumstances. The allip is specifically the ghost of someone who was driven to madness and, eventually, suicide. As a result, the allip is both insane and vengeful, focusing its attention on those it blames for its traumatic death.

The allip can't communicate verbally, but babbles a constant stream of nonsense noise that attracts the attention of anybody that hears it. This ghost is completely incorporeal, but those who have been "touched" by the insubtantial shade report a cold shrivelling in their brains, similar to the feeling that mediums have reported when attempting psychic communication with it. If the allip has focused its attention on you, it's impossible to escape without divine aid.

Allips can be confused with banshees, a similar wailing, vengeful spirit. However, allips have no discernable gender and their voice is nowhere near as deadly.

Moving on from constructs (for now)! Allips are a monster that gets complained about on occasion because its abilities are what is called "save or die". Essentially, creatures have attacks or abilities which are normally countered by your own defenses. An orc with a club will have to bypass your armour in order to deal damage, a dragon's fire breath will have to bypass your Reflex (itself your natural dexterity plus any bonuses you have). But an allip's Madness ability has no save against it, and its incoporeal touch only has to phase though armour. While they deal no physical damage, the allip's attacks deal ability damage, your stats instead of your HP. As a low-level monster, you're probably not going to have access to the means needed for healing your stats. Meaning that in 4 hits an allip can essentially render your character unplayable by reducing it's Wisdom stat to 0, driving it insane.

If you see an allip, run.

Blanca’s Tumblr

Happy Halloween! Brain in a Jar

The brain in a jar is considered an undead creature. I guess the process that involves yanking a brain out of someone's noggin and sticking it in a goopy container will kill the brain at some point. Temporarily at least. The brain is a good deal more potent in the jar than in the head, since the alchemical whatsits gives it some psychic juju to mess around with. It can communicate telepathically, implant suggestions, squeeze minds and float itself and its container around. It isn't that happy about its situation though, and anybody who tries to read the brain's mind will share its madness (Wisdom drain, yo).

Honestly, I find the fact that it has a fly speed a little disappointing. I really dig the idea of this seemingly inanimate object hidden somewhere in the room that's dealing damage. Or what if you have a whole room filled with these fellas, all dealing 2d10 damage in one go. I think that sounds neat.

This seems like a considerably less powerful version of the elder brain and the demilich, to make things accessible to low-level characters.

My favourite "brain in a jar" story is a certain Lovecraft tale. Roald Dahl also wrote a short story ("William and Mary") with an extracted sentient brain that was also quite unpleasant.

Happy Halloween, peeps.

Tomb Mote

Necromancers would do well to switch graveyards on a fairly regular basis after their rituals, lest they end up with a minor infestation of Tomb Motes. Necromantic magic generally animates bodies or large body parts, but in the decomposition process a lot of dead matter falls to the side, magically imbued but in too diluted a form to actually do anything. But when enough hair, skin flakes, bone fragments, rot ooze and grave dirt are gathered up together, the combined dark magic is enough for the different parts to fuse into a single vaguely humanoid creature. Essentially, a Tomb Mote is a sentient dust bunny of graveyard detritus.

The Tomb Mote is small --about the size of a cat-- and weak. But they still possess enough intelligence to know swarming tactics, and are quick enough to strike many times in a short period (gaming translation: they get an extra standard action). Wash any wounds received from this creature immediately or risk sepsis. Soap is a handy adventuring tool.

Angel of Decay

The Angel of Decay is not a true angel -- it's not any sort of extradimensional. Nor is it a true angel that has succumbed to some vicious corruption. The Angel of Decay is a physical manifestation of rot and gain nourishment from the decay of others. It's almost always in flight, but upon touching the ground, a pool of oozing putresence will form around it.

Sorry about the delay in updating. We've been quite busy and drained lately. But thanks to all of you who visit the site and to those who have purchased our book.

The Angel of Decay is a much more interesting creature that the original illustration led me to believe. In that image, the flesh of the angel seems to be dry and torn away from its bones in ragged strips. An while that's a valid way to potray an undead creature, it doesn't seem quite adequate for something symbolizing the decomposition of flesh. I ended up doing a fair bit of research on the spoilage of carcasses which is, needless to say, fascinating but gross. There are various stages to decomposition. First there's bloating as gases build up and various frothing liquids are expelled. Then the soft exposed tissues (eyes, mouth, wounds...) are consumed by insects -- a few videos I've watched had the heads of the experimental pig carcass dissolve into nothingness before there was much of a mark on the rest of the body. Then the body goops up until all the moisture leaves the body, and sometimes the stuff left after evaporation leaves a dark strain behind. Finally you have remaining dry tissue and bone. Decomposition changes according to the environment (see mummification).

So I decided to make the angel really goopy. The physical body of angel is in that state of decay where all the flesh is runny and blackened and being consumed by maggots. The angel's path is strewn with its own cast off rotting meat.

I also took inspiration from Biblical sources. I originally was looking as Pestilence of the Four Horsemen, but in the end I wanted to emphasize the angelic shape of the creature more. At the same time, I still wanted it to look alien and wrong. In the end I decided to make it look like a rotting seraphim. Seraphim were depicted as having six wings hiding the rest of the angel's body from view, save sometimes for a glimpse of the face, and covered in divine flame.

REDUX MONTH: Devourer

Here's our fiiiiiiinal image of Redux Month here on Dungeons & Drawings, the soul-stealing Devourer!

It's a longstanding tradition here at Dungeons & Drawings that anything with the name "Month" in the title typically takes 2 - 3 x longer than a month. A record which remains unbroken! This time the delay is almost entirely my fault (usual moans of work PLUS A CERTAIN SPECIAL SOMETHING WE'LL BE ABLE TO ANNOUNCE SOON). Plus, you know, Pokemon, I guess? Message me on twitter (@torpordust) if you wanna exchange friend codes or something.

Anyway, for our final pair of pics we've reduxed the hell out of each other's least favourite images. I love what Blanca did with the Sphinx, so I had a go at taking the Devourer (one of my favourite undead creatures) and running with the design pretty far from the D&D original. He's pretty different, almost like a construct, with a big birdcage torso housing the harvested essences of his victims (although I really like the creature's "undeath" angle so I tried to keep that feel with the skeletal arms/legs). The victim of his soul-stealing is my wizard character Ovid, who I actually did another picture of over here which I like a bit more than this picture.

I'm trying to push my approach a bit in complexity, this time including a background with several light sources and a sort of twisted perspective + poses. I'm not too pleased with the result, as I think it comes across as busy, but it was a lot of work so I guess having it done is sort of satisfying. Anyway, to hell with it! It's posted. Here endeth Redux Month.

As always, I want to say thanks to everyone for hanging around for our three years of blogging monster redesigns. It seriously means a lot to both of us. Doing Redux Month has really hammered home the ways we've developed artistically through doing the blog and engaging with people like y'all, it's really heartening. So thankyou! Seriously!

Also, we'll be at the following conventions in England over the next couple of months. Come say hello!

- Joe

Skirr

Skirr are massive undead flying creatures. The appear as vaguely humanoid avian creatures with long-toothed bull heads, often covered in funeral wrappings, like a mummy would. The question is what are these creatures? Who mummified them? Why would they do that? Are they an ancient intelligent race? Demons? Corporeal gods? A physical manifestation of evil?

Whatever they were, the evidence is long gone. Now they're animal-like monsters, crawling from their ancient tombs and flying in vast empty places where someone might be stranded. They swoop down on their unfortunate victim and snatch them up in their talons. They fly up as high as they can then let the victim drop...

Joe picked this monster for me to draw this week. It might be something we do to challenge the other person to step out of their comfort zone. Normally I don't go for skeletons. I can draw skulls okay, but the complicated-ness of the rest of the bone structure muddles my head up some. But I'm quite happy with the way the bones in this look, especially the rib cage, especially considering the extra weird-shaped bones that birds have.

Lich

Wo Jia, Illustrious Scion of the Divine Kingly Bloodline and Peace-Loving Defender of the Sacred Light, reigned over the great Lowland kingdoms the better part of a century. His reign was an eventful one - he oversaw many great changes during his lifetime to which he always adapted in a way both harmonious and supremely willful, with the interests of the common man ever at heart. 

Despite the Lowlands being sandwiched between the aggressively expansionistic Dwarvish Commonwealth and the fervorous hordes of Kord, his Kingdom saw no war for the entire duration of his earthly reign. Indeed, he was so well-loved by his people that when he neared his end during an illness in his 117th year, there was panic among the nobles of his court. There was no heir to succeed him! How would the Kingdom continue to prosper without Wo Jia?

An agreement was reached. The ritual was performed in secret by a wizard - better for the public not to know, really. The ruse was faultless. At first, the difference was barely noticeable, since his flesh was already wasted away. They bathed him daily in perfumes, and incense was always burned in his presence. Over the years, though, it was clear to any onlooker with eyes to see; his skin was tanned like leather now, taut over bone like some delicate drum. If the people suspected, however, no man ever spoke of it. The King yet reigned, and the Lowlands flowered under his guidance. 


So, 200 images! Well, this is the 201st, I think. Blanca and I thought we'd celebrate by posting some of the most iconic creatures in the entirety of D&D - both ever-popular villains - the Red Dragon and the Lich (neither of which, miraculously, we've done before!). So, another big soppy thankyou (the second in a row) to everyone for sticking with us.

The Lich is pretty much the go-to guy for a scheming villain these days. Whether it's the eponymous villain of WoW's second expansion or Order of the Stick's cliché-embracing Xykon, a malevolent dead sorcerer is going to tick most of your boxes. Which isn't to say the formula isn't open to reinvention - one of the most popular villains of the last decade is actually a Lich! Who, you ask? Well, a Lich's defining characteristic is that he stores his immortal soul safely in a small trinket, called a Phylactery, in order to shield it from harm, rendering him unable to truly die. Can you think of any bad guys of recent years who would do something like that? Hint: he does it more than once!

Anyway, another big post. I'm not 100% fond of the image, but the idea of a Lich made out of good intentions is something I've been rolling about in my brain for a while. Enjoy!

-Joe

Quell

The longstanding traditional enemy of all undead are the clerics and priests of good-aligned deities. Clerics of gods such as Pelor and Heironeous are blessed with the ability to cast heal spells - which, being comprised of positive energy, actually deal damage when cast against undead. In addition, they can channel a wave of positive energy to "turn" nearby undead in an attempt to destroy them utterly. These abilities make clerics an excellent addition to any band of adventurers, not least when the quest at hand will involve numerous necromantic encounters.

A Quell is physically a very weak undead creature, just CR3. Barely corporeal, its matter flows around it like cloth, surrounded by a swarm of  floating runes of blasphemy and breaking. What marks it out is its loathing for deities and their followers - a loathing that manifests in an ability to completely cut off divine spellcasters from using divine magics against it. By itself, a Quell poses little threat; added to a group of sturdier undead it can effectively shut down a party's main means of survival for long enough for its brethren to do the necessary damage. For this reason, Quells are eagerly sought out by necromancers seeking to bolster their forces.

Mummy

Happy belated Halloween, peeps. Have a mummy.

I'm sure you guys have come across one of these fellas at some point or another, and begun to crumble to dust as a result of their curse. Well, that's all your fault because what were you doing disturbing the dead.

Mummies are interesting, but sadly very varied in design, tending to stick to the Egyptian archetype. A mummy is a dead body that's had some sort of treatment to it to preserve it, so instead of rotting away into goo, it becomes withered and dessicated. The word 'mummy' comes from 'mummia', the combination of ingredients used in the embalming process. This sort of thing usually comes attached to belief that the soul can return to the body, and that it should be kept as nice as possible. Lots of other cultures practices mummification: Incas, the people of the Canary Islands, the Philippines, Buddhists... The Buddhists are the most interesting ones I think, since it's self-mummification.

Some Buddhist monks believed they knew when they were going to die. When they felt their time was coming, they changed their diet to a set of vegetation that they thought would help preserve them post-death. They were then walled alive, where they eventually starved-slash-died of dehydration, trying to do so in the lotus position. The body would be exhumed after a set amount of time, and if it was in good condition, it would become a sacred relic. Some of these mummies were cast in gold (hint: use levitating gold-clad mummies in your game). Self-mummification is now banned.

Mummification is still practiced today, though not as commonly. There's embalming, which is like mummification-lite, a way of keeping the body nice for a long period of time. There's also Summum (which is kinda exclusive). If you look up mummies, they're not hugely impressive for the whole preservation brouhaha; they all look black and shrunken, so what's the big deal. But then you look at Rosalia Rombaldo, which was a little girl who was mummified by her father in 1920, who despite a looking a little waxy and yellow, looks remarkably fresh for someone who's been dead for almost a century.

Morhg

The Morhg is a horrifying creature even among the undead. Born from the bodies of mass murderers, Morghs unusually do not keep any semblance of the form they held in life; appearing rather as a hideously long, flesh-coloured, worm-like creature. They then in turn infest dead bodies they encounter as vile puppets of meat.

Happy belated Halloween! For this, the most spooky of holidays, Blanca and I have illustrated some particularly terrifying monsters. The Morhg is one of those monsters that catches your eye with sheer disgust when you first see it - something about this horrible parasitic slug that reminds you of the creatures from Shivers, or those horrible primordial worm monsters in Peter Jackson's King Kong. The inspiration here is partially from the conceptually wonderful Rasklapanje enemies in Resident Evil 6, with a pinch of the long-headed ReDeads from LoZ: Wind Waker. Eurgh!

Jahi

The Jahi is a manifestation of unfulfilled desires of the dead. They concentrate and eventually give rise to a ghostly serpent, which silently seeks out someone to use as its puppet and force them to indulge in all sorts of hedonistic pleasure, and draw others into an orgiastic celebration of excess. To the naked eye, it looks like the person is uncouth and unmodest, though strangely alluring. But those who look closer notice the creature.

This creature is actually based on a demoness of Zoroastrianism. She is a servant Ahriman, the evil side, and seeks out to destroy good with filth and sexuality. She possesses and tempts women and makes them lascivious, and mensturation is a sign of her defilement of them.

My applause to the writers of D&D for taking this creature in an interesting direction. Instead of making the Jahi yet another succubus-like sexy demon lady, they went for something amazingly weird: a multi-headed snake that drains Charisma and controls a host. This is an great monster to have as a bad guy. Though it's Tiny, its challenge rating is a whopping 16. Its touch attack is especially dangerous dealing 1d3 damage and 1d4 Charisma damage (with an extra 5 points of damage to your hp per Charisma taken). Also a neat creature that will probably fight to keep the host it's so carefully been grooming and will probably cut its losses to seek another better host if discovered.

Bhut

Especially in areas of intense magical activity, corpses rarely stay dead for long. The Bhut is a result of a creature dying violently and suddenly, far from home. One of the more lively forms of undead, a Bhut is actually a formless spirit with the ability to inhabit dead bodies. Whilst it takes to its adopted form with some vigor it is not known for its finesse, and takes some creative decisions with the flesh of its host. Appearing as a horrible cloud of gristle, blood and bone, the Bhut aggressively attacks any who approach it.

Devourer

The Devourer is a giant undead creature, looking like a mummified shambling creature with great claws and an exposed ribcage. There's a little person in the ribcage. This little person is YOU.

Well, not really you. Potentially you. As in it's a full-round save-or-die ability it uses to suck the soul out of you and stick in its chest, slowly being consumed as it uses its magical abilities. This is another creature you should probably stick to using arrows for.

Also, this weekend (26th-27th of May) me and Joe Sparrow will be at the London MCM Expo. I'll be selling a couple of Dungeons & Drawings stickers and prints, and he'll be selling his own original artwork and comic. So drop by and say hi!

Crypt Chanter

The Crypt Chanter is music-themed wraith. They gather together in choirs and orchestras, and using their lyrical powers they overwhelm nearby creatures then slowly begin to drain the life from them. When the victim dies, he rises and becomes another member of the group under the control of a spectral conductor.

Personally, I quite like monsters whose strategy seems a little bit more mysterious than "smack the PCs with my scary-strong attacks". These fellas are incorporeal too so that's... almost like being a slighty invisible shadow? Well, if you fluff them right they can be. Just find a way to block all the exits and the PCs are now stuck in a room with some weird spooky hymns echoing around as wavering shadowy singers float above your heads.

Featured on The Going Last Gaming Podcast's May of the Dead Carnival.