Spirit Naga

Nagas are snakelike creatures, and are, by and large, rather evil. They inhabit the dark and dank parts of the world, using their strength, cunning and magical ability to keep lesser creatures in thrall.

Nagas, like Liches and Beholders, fit in nicely as an enemy in almost any campaign - their predilection for evil and accumulation of underlings serves them well as a "final boss" sort of character. Their name is taken from a variety of snake-spirits in eastern mythology, the Nāga, which also lend their name to Voldemort's pet snake.

Another relative quickie this week, I have plenty to do! I think next week we're going to be doing some more requests.

Otyugh

The Otyugh is one of the more repugnant creatures of the world. It lives in filth, consumes it, and there are even varieties of the monster where their appearance varies according to the specific kind of waste they're surrounded with. While not specifically evil, they're governed by their stomachs. But they're intelligent enough to strike basic deals; its common for more intelligent beings to use them as guardians or as waste disposal.


This is one of Dungeon and Dragons' classic creatures, appearing in the first Monster Manual and thought up by Gary Gygax himself. They're really bizarre looking creatures, with a tentacle coming out of their head that acts as a visual and olfactory organ.

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.

Olaf Ullathorne

Olaf Ullathorne is a fierce warrior of the mountain-clans of Trosk, a sporadic scattering of settlements among the highest and most ferocious peaks of the southern mountains. Considerably stronger and larger than the average warrior (the Ullathorne clan was rumoured to carry giant blood), he has travelled the land working essentially as muscle-for-hire, but is known to be more discerning than his peers when it comes to morals. His weapon of choice is as large and intimidating as he is - a gigantic, two-handed staff bound at one end with a fierce tangle of antlers, mountain-lion teeth and flint blades known as a sugliin - which was once his clan's ancestral totem. His family brutally slaughtered by a neighboring tribe, he now wields it in the name of his ancestors; even though their bloodline has come to an end, the legendary Ullathorne clan will live on through his deeds.

This is the character I had the pleasure of playing in the recent campaign the guys at the London D&D Meetups group held, DMed by Simon Newall. I'm not particularly characterful with my roleplaying but I certainly enjoyed killing three half-giants in one round of combat in a particularly grizzly fight (pictured above). :3

Yrthak

The Yrthak is a monstrous flying reptilian creature. They are omniverous, but with a preference for meat, and are well-equipped with some extraordinary features for hunting. Although blind, a special sensory organ on the tongue informs them of the exact location of anything making a noise within around 120 metres, allowing them to swoop in deftly for the kill. For well-armoured foes, they posess the ability to use the large, spiralled horn on their head to emit a concentrated burst of sound, powerful enough to knock down and deafen anyone caught in its path. It is thought that this strange organ is also used in communicating (since the creature does not speak), and echolocation.

To clear up any confusion, the Yrthak is pictured above hunting another odd-looking creature, the bird-horse or Achaierai, with which it shares the environment of "temperate mountains". This week's theme is "flyers", and it took me a few goes to get it right (or at least "okay").

Howler Wasp

This creature didn't happen naturally, as many creatures do, but was the mistake of the paranoid wizard Otiulke. Seeking to protect himself from Slaadi enemies, he sought to create a fierce guardian animal. His initial experiment provided the Howler Wasps, a combination of monkey and hornet. They proved to be too vicious to control, but Otiulke was caught and killed before he could destroy his creation. They escaped and have since been spreading through the world, creating giant nests ruled over by a monstrous Queen.


Really, what do you expect when you try to make a something that combines the cuddlyness of a wasp with the friendliness of a baboon? Fortunately, the howler wasps are fairly small creatures, about the size of a dog (which I guess is still a little too big) and fairly weak. However, killing one means that the body begins secreting a pheromone that attracts other wasps and drives them into a frenzy.

Just set the nest on fire.

Troll

The Troll is a green-skinned, mountain-dwelling monster. They're not very smart, and appear clumsy because of their sloping posture, but they have all their senses tuned to relentlessly tracking down their victims. A Troll can regenerate any damage done to it, even the loss of an important body part either by attaching the lost part to the stump, or just growing a new one a few minutes later. It's possible that their low intelligence is partially because of their durability, that the Troll never felt a reason to be clever enough to avoid damage. Fire is their worst enemy.


Trolls are pretty classic monsters in roleplaying games and out. I'm not familiar enough with the mythology of this particular creature to know whether the regeneration thing stems from legend, or whether its an invention of D&D.

This interpretation of the troll is strangely plant-like. They're mostly green, and sometimes the hair is described as softly undulating, like it has a life of its own. The trolls have a sibling race called Scrags, which are esentially the same only aquatic, and their regeneration ability only manifests itself when mostly submerged underwater. This further empasizes the whole plant thing. Maybe there's a legend somewhere that says trolls came from trees or something.

Earth Weird

Weirds are elemental beings, pure manifestations of elemental matter and energy. They are divining spirits, whose close relationship to the material of the universe allows a degree of foresight concerning events to come - most Weirds being of the four primary elements, fire, water, air and earth.

Earth Weirds are in some ways the most cryptic of these creatures, foretelling success or failure in regards to material posessions. Each Weird is bound to a specific location of its own element - a "pool" - from which is may not leave (except to return to its plane of origin). The pool of an Earth Weird is as startling as it is deadly - a constantly churning, roiling mass of rock and dirt.

This week's theme is female creatures! This is mostly for my benefit, as I need a lot more practice drawing women (read: I am terrible at it). This little number was cooked up with a lot of help from various reference sources (cough) and inspiring artists (Ross Campbell to name one). I know talking about it is kind of perverted but I have a deep physical admiration for a wide variety of female body types, and I want that to come across in my depictions of them without just being all T&A.

Spell Weaver

Spell weavers are enigmatic creatures, encountered alone if encountered at all. Gaunt, six-armed humanoids with owl-like features, they neither speak nor express any visible emotion, whether to humans or (apparently) their own kind. They are known to collect and steal magical artefacts, "raiding" bands of adventurers for a particular magical trinket. Physically weak, they are as dextrous as they appear, having the uncommon ability to cast six spells at once, one with each arm.

Two interesting characteristics are shared by all Spell Weavers: firstly they all carry a small disc, about a handspan across, which pulses with a variety of colours. As far as non-Spell Weavers have been able to discern, this is some sort of spell-casting device, further boosting the creature's already formidable magical ability.

Secondly, Spell Weavers have a bizarre tendency to leave notes behind for their victims to read - more often than not these are rambling streams of gibberish, and answer no questions about the creatures' motives.

Spell Weavers are some of my favourite creatures ever! I have a fascination with owls' faces and a soft spot for spellcasters. With hindsight the robe here reminds me more than a little of this... uh-oh...

Green Slaad

The Slaadi are hermaphroditic toad-like creatures born of the Everchanging Chaos of Limbo, a highly morphic and dangerous dimension that only the most willful can control. The Slaadi have a parasitic form of reproduction, being born of egg implantations or diseases they inflict on other creatures. If the affected creature is a spellcaster, a Green Slaad is born. It's more intelligent and powerful than its lesser bretheren, has shapeshifting abilities and can summon others of its kind.

The Slaadi are a well-known trademark race of the D&D universe. Despite being creatures born of chaos, they aren't motivated by good or evil, though they are still destructive enough to be cast as villains. They are the only creatures who can effortlessly control the morphing of Limbo, as they're the only true natives of that plane. All Slaadi look like bipedal toads, but that isn't their original form. They are ruled by two Slaad Lords; one is a black skeleton and the other a golden ameoba. They decided to seal the Slaad race in their current form to prevent them to mutate into something more powerful.

Most Slaadi are red or blue, and they're the only two with the ability to reproduce. A Green Slaad is rare, and the longer it lives, the more powerful it becomes. If it lives long enough, it can become a Black Slaad, a creature too strong for the most powerful devils and dragons to destroy. Thankfully, it takes at least 400 years for a green to go through all the steps and rituals necessary to become black.

Reekmurk

The Reekmurk is one of serveral kinds of water-dwelling oozes. They are normally found in underwater caverns in the depths of frigid arctic oceans, but tectonic movement will release them from their normal home and force them to the surface. It is a formless black shape, not unlike a cloud of ink or oil slick, with thin tendrils spreading out. It's practically invisible in the darkness. It's size means it can easily take down ships, its acidic body burning through wood and its foul poisonous vapours weakening life. This creature is weak to sunlight, which can kill it or drive it back to the depths from which it came.


The ooze is an iconic Dungeons and Dragons creature that we've been kind of avoiding. All oozes are pretty much the same thing; a mindless, destructive blob. They vary little in appearance, save for colour and mild size differentes. The best known one is the Gelatinous Cube, which is exactly what is says on the tin. Of course they all have different abilities, but at the end of the day you're still looking at a blob.

But then again I suppose the challenge in illustrating an ooze is to show it in action.

Void Ooze

Creatures of the "Ooze" type are often physically primitive - posessing little in the way of defined organs and rarely maintaining a constant form for any period of time, their bodies are simple, gelatinous masses of chaotic magical tissue.

Void Oozes have no specific origin but "occur" naturally across the planes. They are manifestations of negative energy, the anti-life force which is tapped by magic users such as necromancers who use it to power their spells. As such, a Void Ooze is often found in areas devoid of life, occasionally accompanied by smaller undead who are drawn to the negative magics it excretes as a dark penumbra.

This week's theme was designed to pose a challenge - how do you make a drawing of a formless blob interesting? I enjoyed drawing the Void Ooze, as its appearance bears no small resemblance to a certain Flying Spaghetti Monster. Lighting in in a suitably "negative" way was also fun.