Dwarven Artillery

I never bought the Gnomes as tinkers bull crap that I think DragonLance introduced and was perpetuated aggressively in the Forgotten Realms (the briny coast that most DL characters washed up on after they had capped out) and ultimately put on steroids thanks to the cultural phenomena of World of Warcraft. Dwarves, not gnomes, were always the tinkering engineers in my head-canon. And speaking of cannons (see what I did there) if anybody was likely to have mastered boom-powder and militarize it, it would be dwarves.

Assuming a gunpowder-free setting though, Dwarven ingenuity lends itself to mechanized artillery just the same, at the large end with elaborate siege-engines, and at the personal scale with crossbows. Not just any mundane crossbows either, but elaborate ones with complex lacings of cables on wheels and limbs, amplifying power in compact forms suitable for use in narrow corridors and interior spaces where flatter trajectories of faster projectiles are ideal.

Speaking of projectiles, the bolts fired by these devious dwarves are not going to be simple iron points. No, they will be death machines in their own right, displaying the same sort of fiendish ingenuity that their launchers exhibit, and in settings with gunpowder or similar magic and technology, dwarves are likely to have crafted explosive bolts and bullets for their crossbows.

Finally, unlike the popular culture that tends to cast Dwarves with Scottish accents, I tend to think of mine as having a more Eastern European accent and curiously, a lot of patents for crazy crossbow designs like these have been taken out by inventors with names penned in Cyrillic alphabets.

Katkin

Katkin from the GW 1e release of Legion of Gold.

Unless their cartouche is hiding in the linework, this is an unsigned piece. I suspect Jim Roslof based on style, and supported by this being the only unsigned illustration and Roslof having no other illustration in the work (process of elimination). 

Stylistically, Bill Willingham can't be ruled out either, so it's possible Roslof produced the maps and this is a WIllingham piece.

Regardless, I scanned it out, narrowed the contrast band to eliminate inconsistencies from the print and scan processes, and applied a couple of filters to smooth the line-work ever so slightly, then sharpen (recorrect) the edges, which improves it as a portable image while retaining the character of the original.



From the text:

KATKINS
NO. APPEARING: 1-6
HIT DICE: 9
ARMOR CLASS: 4
MOVEMENT: 15 (sustained movement, 20 for short bursts of speed)
ATTACKS: two claws and a bite, or a weapon
DAMAGE: 1-6/1-6/J-6, or by weapon type
MUTATIONS: heightened speed and balance, imitation of thought and sound

Katkins are a mutated form of the common house cat, standing about one meter tall when walking erect (which they often do). Coloration can range from white- to orange-striped, but graystriped and brown or black solid colors are the most common. These intelligent creatures have not lost their fangs or their claws, although the claws of their manipulative forepaws are not proportionately as long as the rear ones. Katkins are rather shy and reclusive, using their heightened speed and balance to live arboreal lives, ranging amidst the upper branches of woodlands to hunt and explore. One or more katkins will construct a well concealed hut of woven vines and branches high up in the largest of trees, dwelling there during summer months. Winter quarters are typically in hollow tree trunks. Katkins have both sound and thought imitation capabilities; so, in addition to their normal body weaponry (two claw attacks and a bite per turn, each doing 1-6 points of damage), they have dangerous imitative abilities as well.Katkins have been known to possess and use small technological devices (pistols, vibro daggers, etc.). Employment of normal weapons suited to their size and strength is fairly common around the  creatures' home.

Epic Sword

This is a beautiful sword. I won't be talking about the actual item and its history, which can be found here. Instead, I want to talk about what it made me think of:

The pocking and nicks of the blade are not the function of age and corrosion, but the nature of the thing. It's aged appearance belies its strength, and that seemingly blunt and eroded blade is actually a keen carver of both flesh and armor alike, forever sharp, while the erratic serrations of the edge allow it to hew into almost any material.

A warrior wielding such a blade my be thought at first quixotic, but as the weapon reveals its uncanny trait for bifurcating most anything it's plied against, either or both the sword and its wielder will come to command respect.

Or perhaps the corroded appearance is also an indication of secondary properties, and the weapon actually has a corrosive or acidic effect upon that which it comes in contact, and the only safe housing for it is an enchanted sheath....

Small is Scary

In traditional fantasy role-playing games, everything is big. You thought a centipede is scary, we made it 10 feet long. That regular spider freaking you out? Here's one 5 feet tall! It doesn't really matter what it is, the rule is to make it as big (or bigger) than a person, and maybe cover it in spikes and/or bony plates.

In reality though, the bigger you make a thing, once you get over the shock factor, makes it a lot more manageable. A giant spider could cause some initial bladder control issues, but once you get over that it's a big-ass spider, it's not any different than the any other wilderness or dungeon denizen. You square up, bust out the spells, spears, and swords, and have at it, and because it's fairly large, a group can gang up on it and have a fairly easy time of hitting it, because of it's size, the tactics required are pretty straight forward.

What is really scary is the small ones, especially if you make them lethal, community web building hunters. Imagine, the trees or dungeon surfaces are wrapped in a shroud of webbing, in which tens of thousands of spiders no bigger than a large common spider (not even a tarantula) all armed with necrotic, paralyzing poison. They trail 'hook lines' down into corridors, and as passing prey connects with the slight, sticky filaments, they dislodge the spider from it's ceiling roost, where it quickly finds it's way into the warm inner folds of armor and garments, where it delivers numbing bites as it roams along.. eventually, the prey will fall as their muscles seize up, their heart barely beating, and numerous small spiders emerge from the webbing to wrap the nigh-corpse in a it's very own death-shroud to preserve it's bodily fluids, as the poor sap becomes a larder for all those hungry little monsters, poison softening the tissues of the body into a delicious soup.

How do you combat that?

Burn the webs! but alas, while direct application of flame will cause them to shrivel and singe, like many webs, they simply refuse to ignite... so one must go along and inch by inch burn the webs, but even then, you haven't destroyed the fiends, only the time-crafted lair that made their job easier. Purging expanses with fireballs and other expansive pyrotechnics can make quick work of the lair, but so many of the spiders are still in their tunneled warrens, pocking the walls, ceiling, and floors of their domain.The drag lines will still be lowered, the victims still claimed.

You can't very well fight them with sword or spear... mallets and blunt flails maybe, but even then, those weapons will take horrible abuse to eradicate so many minute foes. And even if we made these fiends the size of grapefruit, sword and spear would be blunted and dulled clashing against the stones while slaying them, but alas, they are the size of small nuts, and even harder to hit. Stomping on those you can reach may work well at first, but that may simply expose you to more.

The greatest plate armor in the world, besides being impractical gear for dungeon delving (imo) would truly show itself as a liability against these foes... mighty warriors squealing like school-children, slapping at their face and hair, ripping armor off for fear of a spider in their gusset.

It's the smallest monsters that you need to be scared of.

Inspired in part by this tale of RL drain exploration. And this story of a house infestation.

Every Wizard Needs a Hat

Dungeon Thoughts

 I have used trees and tree stumps for inspiration many times. My ongoing fantasy campaign metropolis Amberuen was based on the stump of massive (about 4 feet high and about 3 in diameter at the cut line) date-palm tree. In fact, the first dungeon I designed was based on the gnarled roots of a mulberry tree at my old elementary school. So it's no surprise to me that once again, I am finding inspiration in tree stumps.

This time, I was looking for inspiration for a massive sprawl of natural caverns riddled with trails twining along cavern walls, yawning open into unfathomable depths, occasionally bridged from one side to the other, and all linking together elaborate tombs, temples, lairs, etc, carved and constructed in more traditional dungeon styles. So here, in the cracking and rotted out spaces, I find inspiration for the layout of those massive caverns.

I envision large expanses in the rotted clefts, up to tens of hundreds of feet across, and the narrower cracks snake along, 20, 50, even 100 feet across at their widest. Along the trails that skirt those sheer faces, are carved tombs and temples, libraries and laboratories, dungeons and prisons, and the lairs of whatever happens to call this place home. 

Serendipity Indeed

Over at Telecanter's Receding Rules, some interesting public domain images were shared. Among them was this particular image.

 And this reminded me of some lore of the mesa city of Amberuen:

In the middling days of the existence of the mecca city, after the wrath of their lord cleaved the side open, a would-be prophet imbibed too deeply of knowledge, and became obsessed with the truth of things, and came to know more than mortal minds are meant to know. He ultimately went utterly mad, and was confined into the vault of secrets, where all dangerous truths are kept to keep mortal minds safe and happy. 

But before he was so confined, before the madness took him, he set about to know every stone of the mountain Amberskeir, atop which Amberuen was perched. He claimed to have seeped into the fibers of the mountain and engraved upon the very stone glyphs of binding to hold the mountain against all but the wrath of their lord, should he ever deign to smite the edifice he brought forth from the plain so many millennia before.

In some far distant future, the mountain will exist as naught but a splinter crowned with the temple of their lord, thrust out from the shattered remains of the mountain's base. For miles in all directions about the ruined mountain, chunks of stone will be scattered, engraved with the glyphs that mad prophet claimed to have made, and those who make pilgrimage to that then ancient shrine, will find that venturing off the few safe paths will result in their passage between glyphed stones allowing the power of those bindings to activate, bringing stones together with great force once again, crushing anything between them.

An Antarctic Mystery

Thought it was about time to get this off my desktop. I pulled this unattributed image from the web recently, for inspiration or future use. I did a bit of research, and discovered it was cover art for Jules Verne's An Antarctic Mystery.

Goblins

"Becoming Troll" by Velkis Erk

These images were intended by their creators as depictions of trolls, but these are more consistent with what I think of as goblins.

Long ago, the Enfae warrior castes known as the Gnuae'Moblae, in their lust for power, trifled with dark powers and became corrupted. Over the centuries, as their culture became more barbaric and their language degenerated, they came to call themselves the Gyo-blunn. But in the common tongue of men, they are known as Goblins.

Goblin have long pointed ears, sharp elongated noses, small eyes, high cheekbones, and tusk-like teeth or fangs. They have little if any facial hair and body hair, and their heads are covered in thin hair, though balding is common. Head ridges and goat-like horns are rare and marks of strong fae-magic potential. Their bodies are lean and muscular.

"Troll" by Alexey S. Lipatov

Goblin coloration is fairly consistent in any given clan: typically shades of olive green, tan, or gray. Their hair, if they have any, is usually black, dark green, brown, or less often, coppery red, graying with age.

A fair matrix of Goblin skin tones,
but I doubt those are the names they
would use for those colors.

The more degenerated goblin clans and subspecies have rounder, larger, and less pointed features: larger eyes; broader, longer noses; and thicker, longer ears. Their bodies are thicker and gnarled, their skin mottled and darker with lumps and lesions, and little if any hair. The less fae-influence, the more pronounced these traits, and the weaker their magical aptitudes.

Most goblins have affinities toward elemental magics, but those strengths are normally rudimentary. Strong elemental affinities are rare, and those with them become the craftsmen, bosses, or shaman of goblin society, depending on the strength and nature of their affinities.

Goblins with affinities toward the life-force and mind influencing powers of their fae ancestors are few, and are normally found in the less degenerate clans and individuals. Individuals with particularly strong fae affinities are typically marked with ridges or goat-like horns on their heads, or even more rarely, tails or other animal like manifestations. In goblin clans, such goblins are occasionally killed to protect power structures, but more typically, they become commanders, shaman or seers, or even chiefs and kings.

The Shhee-Veld, image attribution unknown

Some of those with fae affinities can find the veils between the Enfae dreams and see through from the fifth (the dream or realm of human activity) and into the sixth dream' that the goblins call Shhee-Veld or The Ghost Land. Shhee-Veld is a darkened world full of spirit beings, strongly charged with black energy. It is there, that the few remaining original goblins, those corrupted Enfae warlords, eternally young, dwell in their fortified palaces, commanding armies of elite goblins. Those goblin god-kings are worshipped by the lowest castes of goblinkind, a belief that if they prove their worth, they will be revived in the Shee-Veld to join those grand armies, waiting to amass the numbers required to emerge forth and reclaim all the dreams for goblin glory.

Hexagonal Cities:

Here is another massive image dump, This one is hexagon themed city planning and architecture:

I will start out with a hexagonal pyramid/temple complex I designed a long time ago and recently modeled in Sketchup.  It isn't a photo-quality render, but its modeled with some attention for exterior details, such as individual steps. The overall structure is about 360 feet high, and there are a few human cutouts on there to give it some scale. Look close!

The rest of these are historical record images I have acquired from around the internet as inspiration. I never had any intention of sharing these, so I never bothered to keep track of the sources. As always, I will gladly include attributions or delete images upon request. 

Sorry for the lack of commentary, but I don't have anything to add.

Soviet Architectural Dreams

I have collected some interesting images from around the web over the years, and keep them around for inspiration. I have just moved most of those to Picasa and off my PC, and now that they are in the cloud, I thought I would share them here as well:

I am not going to even try to attribute these images, but I believe these are various concept drawings of proposed urban glory projects of the Soviet Union. I apologize for the wall of images; it's a pet peeve of mine, but I have nothing to say or add to the images, and so unfortunately, must simply provide them as is.