Doug's Art and Games Blog

Monster of the Week, May 12, 2020 They just keep coming. Gluttony Beast When someone lives a life using others' suffering to become wealthy, becoming gat off the work of others' labor and suffering, the cries of the oppressed are sometimes heard by the gods or the spirits of the magic realm and the oppressor is punished rather than being allowed to die. Such cursed individuals lose all of their faces but their mouths; their bodies become gelatinous masses of adipose tissue their libs become a mass of soft, slithering tentacles, and their intelligence becomes subsumed by hunger to eat riches and wealth and overcome by a desire to live in their own filth. However, the gluttony beast quickly becomes a curse to the communities in which they are reborn as well. They are ravenous, foul, and spread a miasmic and dolorous stink over the land, which poisons and sickens the land. They themselves are surprisingly quick. Though blind, their sense of smell helps them find pr...

Monster of the Week, May 5, 2020 In honor of the Mexican victory over the French in the town of Puebla in 1862, I'm going to post a monster like I would any other Tuesday The Grey People The Grey People appear in large urban crowds as inconspicuous, bland people who blend into the masses, usually hooded and cloaked with emotionless faces and almost colorless features. Their blandness is almost supernatural, and the specifics of their faces are almost headache-inducing if anyone looks at them directly. As a result, they disappear into a crowd, and people forget seeing them. The Grey People fear being discovered. If anyone begins to investigate them, the Grey People first try to disappear. After that, they begin to work on eliminating the threat, escalating from threats to attempts to kill the threat directly. In the process, those investigating the Grey People find that people do not remember these beings, and deny their influence.

Monster of the Week, April 28 I'm as surprised as you are that I keep publishing these things. Hangman Tree When a person is hanged unjustly, the psychic wound of that injustice marks the world. If the person being hanged unjustly is both magically gifted and willing to call on the dark powers to avenge their suffering, those dark powers are more than willing to grant the wishes of the supplicant and gain more presence on the material plane. These dark powers take the blood and the remains of the sacrifice, their rage and hatred, and the rage and hatred of the mobs that killed them and combine them with the earth itself and their own dark nature. From the ground where the body of the unjustly killed is buried or left to rot, the earth gives birth to a twisted, leafless tree. Eventually, the tree sprouts long filaments with eyes on the end of them, a great maw cracks in the trunk, and a misty gas issues from the tree. The misty gas first summons animals, whose blood feed...

Monster of the Week, April 21, 2020 Even if you wanted me to, I refuse to stop. Hopping Horror Long before the earliest speciest made their way to land, before the earliest chordates began to form into the species we know, many unknown creatures evolved in the sea and made their way to land. The Hopping Horrors are remnants of that time, living deep in the earth. Their bodies consist of a single muscular foot with corded muscles above the foot leading to a gut and maw filled with teet and vestigial, glowing eyes. Above this are frilled breathing membranes and a mass of muscular tentacles. Driven by hunger, these solitary hunters occasionally bud asexually when gorged with flesh. Otherwise, they wait in the dark to surprise miners and explorers who dig too deep and awaken the predators that  predate the lif we know on the surface world.

Monster of the Week, April 14, 2020 I guess I am continuing to put these things out on the Internet. Masked Haunter Those who read through the play The King in Yellow are known to go mad, particularly if they read beyond the first act. But madness is not the only fate of those who meddle in the forbidden text. Sometimes, the text causes the world to warp. Other times, the text serves to open a door to other worlds, particularly when the play is performed. It is said that the Masked Haunter is native to the shores of Lake Hali, and that it is not unknown to the inhabitants of Carcosa. Called by the play, the Masked Haunter is transported from the Hyades to our world, where the alien beings are able to manifest and feed upon the minds of their prey. Hidden normally behind porcelain masks that conceal their brain-like bodies and loose flesh and tentacles that move them as they hover near the ground. They negotiate the world primarily through psyching senses; they feed o...

Monster of the Week, April 7, 2020 More monstrosity this week. Nightmare Forester Creatures of the Far Realm, Nightmare Foresters travel through the Ethereal Realm next to our world until they find the nightmares of mortals. That means they seek out the traumatized and abused most of all, feeding on the energy of their fear and sorrow. Becoming semi-material over their sleeping victims, Nightmare Harvesters reach out with physical and psychic tendrils to enhance the fear and sorrow of their victims and then feed on the psychic energies. Pale, pulsing, six-eyed cephalopods, Nightmare Harvesters usually appear as translucent and immaterial apparitions when seen on our plane. They defend themselves psychically, lashing out against the egos of victims or enemies, causing fear and cluding minds to power their escape from dangerous situations.

Monster of the Week, March 31, 2020 The last monster of March. The Arbiter Looking like a black-skinned human with crow-like feet, a huge crow skull for a head, and dapper clothing, the Arbiter is a demon summoned by sorcerers to make a deal with the powers of entropy to serve their masters' desires. The Arbiter's deals are focused on arcane lore. The Arbiter will teach spells and rituals, help the sorcerer lear true names, secrets, and lore. But the Arbiter's goals are furthering chaos, destruction, corruption, and death. So the secrets it unveils usually demand a price from the life of the sorcerer or those around them. Often the magic it teaches is powerful but uncontrollable. The Arbiter is quiet, calm, even obsequious. It offers only to serve and does not fight its opponents, though it loves to watch the chaos it unleashes and cackles at the results of its action. It does not fight hard to prevent its work from being undone but may use trickery, misdir...

Monster of the Week, March 24, 2020 This week's monster. Psychic Hound Psychic Hounds are called from the Far Realm, and take the form of a skeletal wolf with yellow-gold flames as flesh. They move with the grace and precision of a hunting wolf but are able to move through walls and doors freely since they lack a material body. Instead, they seem to be made somehow of embodied emotions and thoughts, knitted into a fearful form. They only exist in this form to serve a purpose -- to guard an object or kill a target -- and usually, it is for the latter purpose. Once summoned, they use their psychic abilities to hunt enemies. They can see without eyes and don't seem affected by invisibility or stealth. They move faster than humans, travel through barriers, and attack with bites that destroy their target's mind without leaving visible wounds. If no one sees the attack, the victim appears to have fallen dead of a heart attack.

Monster of the Week, March 17, 2020 I'd say that this offering is somehow connected to Saint Patrick, but it really isn't. Screaming Hunters Nocturnal pack hunters, Screaming Hunters dwell on the edges of human lands, inhabiting ruins, abandoned cities, old sewers, and deep forests long abandoned by humans. They are ruthless predators but seem particularly attracted to hunting humans, often with relish and cruelty that is shocking and particular. What is know about them is that they are naked, hairy humanoids with long talon-like hands and feet, toothy maws, tiny eyes, and long, questing tongues. Their long, hunched, and loping gait allows them to run faster than humans, and their endurance reflects their tirelessness in hunting prey. They rend prey with tooth and claw, allowing prey to bleed and suffer after a strike until other members of the pack can strike and wear down their prey. Sages who have studied the few documented cases of their attacks on humanity spec...

Monster of the Week, March 10, 2020 Same stuff as last week, only different. The Smiling Men The Smiling Men are devotees of the King in Yellow, creatures who served in his court as courtiers and advisors. He has also sent them out to other worlds as his heralds and messengers. The Smiling Men are silent and faceless except for their great, smiling mouths. They dress in formal clothing appropriate to the place where they are found. Their flesh is pale, moist, and waxy, like fat worms in a corpse. Their teeth are huge, white, and square. Their bodies are thin and tall, with long limbs, short torsos, and long fingers ending in thick, sharp, brown sails. Where necessary, they use their physical prowess to hunt and destroy the King's enemies. Their claws and teeth inflict terrible wounds while their flesh survives all but the most terrible wounds. Their unnatural appearance strikes fear in most mortals The Smiling Men bear texts to help open the way for the coming ...

Monster of the Week: Tuesday, March 3 Hopefully, you know the drill by now. Sorrow Worm Trauma leaves its mark on the world, not just in the physical and social planes, but also in the supernatural world parallel to the mundane. Pain, loneliness, suffering, brutality, and neglect haunt the spaces where trauma is enacted. Hurt and brutality seep into the weave of reality; adversity, poverty, and hopelessness become tangible. When the trauma is deep enough, when it has endured enough, or it has happened to many people, a Sorrow Worm can materialize to feed suffering and to feed on it. Sorrow Worms can manifest in tenements, slums, and asylums as easily as they can be found in prisons and the palaces of the corrupt. Once manifest, they dwell in silent darkness, allowing their spirits to spread out like a net. Their influence feeds anger, resentment, cruelty, hunger, dissatisfaction, and powerlessness. They make abusers more abusive, and victims less able to resist. Those who d...

Monster of the Week, February 25 Another week, another system-agnostic monster. Tumor Leech The Tumor Leech was first summoned by the Witch Kings of Ylum, and is still mostly found as a trap in Ylumi ruins. The Witch Kings were known for their pacts with the Abyss, the Hells, and all lower planes between as with the entities of the Far Realms. These pacts made their society a powerful empire,  but also led to the collapse of their empire in flames. A Tumor Leech is a cat-sized, tan, fleshy creature with eight tubular limbs and a long tail. It is covered with a slick slime, it lacks eyes or a mouth, sensing vibrations with its entire body. Most are kept in suspended animation in containers as a trap to prevent the raiding of Ylumi treasures and are awakened when they are disturbed. They launch themselves at the first creature they encounter, grappling their target and trying to force their tubular tails into the throat of the target to release a payload of its alchemical...

What I Like in RPG Art Tony DiTerlizzi Probably best known for his work on Planescape in the 90s, his use of exaggerated anatomy, DeTerlizzi has gone on to his own post-DnD career, illustrating a ton of books that don't have game rules in them. Jez Gordon Dynamic, heavy scratchboard illustrations with both a strong sense of mass and motion. Jez is one of the newer artists I have noticed. Not to mention his work as a cartographer and a designer of great-looking books. Russ Nicholson I encountered Russ Nicholson's art both in the Fiend Folio and in pages of White Dwarf back in the 1980s. Russ' intense line work, dark and moody texture and generally grungy feel struck me deeply as hitting an aesthetic that better reflected the sword and sorcery (e.g., Robert E. Howard) and the dark fantasy (e.g. Micheal Moorcock) I liked in my teens. As my tastes have evolved, grungy, dirty and complicated still has been part of my favored art aesthetic. Erol Otus What initiall...

My Rostengrad campaign document is still evolving, but I have nailed down the races or, as Index Card RPG calls them, bio-forms, of Rostengrad. I did some quick, cartoony sketches to illustrate the bio-forms for the campaign to include in the campaign guide. Many of these will have some definite forebears. The Elves of Rostengrad are inspired by the elves from Vornheim (though socially, I think of them as like angrier cousins of the elves from Elfquest ). There are forms inspired by China Mieville's Bas-Lag, and some more standard fantasy tropes from Dungeons and Dragons, too. Bu'oh, Carneigian, Dwarf, Elf Goblin, Hellborn, Human, Myrynh Small Folk, Unliving, Vespid

Monster of the Week, February 18, 2020 Weekly, system-agnostic monster. Fish Wife Appearing as ordinary women with pale, clammy skin and the heads of fish, fishwives appear in seaside villages and approach single men seeking to woo them as husbands. As disgusting as they appear, they promise to care for their husbands by cooking, caring for the home, and even bearing children as ordinary wives, and it is said that they are loyal and dedicated wives. That said, their great fishy heads and great fishy smell are overwhelming, and they will never live far from the water. If a man denies a fishwife marriage, she may curse him for a moon and during that time he will suffer minor calamities. If a man marries a fishwife and is disloyal, the see will disgorge a school of strange fish with the legs of beasts or men and huge teet, and the fish will pursue the man until they or he are dead, then those that survive will return to the sea. The weeping fishwife will then haunt the city wi...

While thinking about the Dungeons and Dragons campaign I am now running, I did a lot of collages and thinking about a steampunk aesthetic. The Steampunk-y collage series reflects this background world-building.

While thinking about the Dungeons and Dragons campaign I am now running, I did a lot of collages and thinking about a steampunk aesthetic. The Steampunk-y collage series reflects this background world-building.

Monster of the Week, February 11, 2020 A weekly, system-agnostic monster. Dream Eater The dreams and hopes of children attract the feeding of the Dream Eater. A shadowy, indistinct, and immaterial being, the Dream Eater feeds on hope, imagination, and wonder. In its wake, children are left with resignation, complacency, and a desire for conformity. Adults are often unaware of the dream eater's work. Instead, it works quietly in the shadows of schools, orphanages, and homes where adults confuse the diminishing magic in the eyes and minds of children as maturation. Instead, the Dream Eater is siphoning off the creative spirit, rebellion, and individuality of children for its own needs. It is not clear why the Dream Eater does what it does. It may use the spirit it drains from children as food, to procreate, or to gather as a sacrifice to a shadowy lord. When confronted, the dream eater does not fight. Rather, it flees. Lacking substance, the dream eater can flit fro sha...

While thinking about the Dungeons and Dragons campaign I am now running, I did a lot of collages and thinking about a steampunk aesthetic. The Steampunk-y collage series reflects this background world-building.