What If Arthur Szyk Illustrated a RPG?

One thing I've long wanted to do is to produce different versions of a role playing game - we'll say Blood & Treasure since that's my game to play around with - keyed to different artists. The rules would stay largely the same, though it might be fun to introduce a couple optional rules to bring the game closer to a particular artist's style - i.e. rules that make the Arthur Rackham version of a game slightly different than the Frank Frazetta version of a game.

If I did this with Blood & Treasure, for example, I would create a "basic" B&T - much shorter, simpler, and make the layout serve the art (and be in color!). I think it would be fun to have simple games to play in books that mainly exist to be beautiful. Imagine something about 30 to 40 pages long, with maybe several nice illustrations in color.

Anyhow - I got to thinking about this again because I was perusing the artwork of Arthur Szyk today. Imagine a game with illustrations like these ...

Fighter

Cleric

Magic-User

Thief

(No, I don't know why the thief would wear a chef's hat ... just work with me here)

This might be something worth doing after I finish the NOD 23, Tome of Monsters, Grit & Vigor and the revision of some older works. Of course, the books would have to work off of stock art by modern artists or works  in the public domain (so no Szyk or Frazetta, unfortunately) to make them financially feasible, but it still might be fun. Maybe the basic version of Blood & Treasure could be called Blood Simple (crap, I think I'm starting to really like this idea ...)

Images found at the following sites:

Arthur Szyk, The Alphabet of Illustrators

Lehigh University Special Collections

Power of Babel: Arthur Szyk: The Canterbury Tales

The Temptations of Kickstarter

Not a week goes by that I don't see some new Kickstarter for a gaming product pulling in beaucoup dollars and I think ... why not me? I currently have two projects in the works that could probably work as Kickstarters - the Tome of Monsters (about 90% written, and for which I need art art art - more on that later) and GRIT & VIGOR (about 60% written, and for which I need almost nothing, since it can use great public domain art for the most part).

Then I think about the downside of the Kickstarter projects. First and foremost, they don't work well with print-on-demand projects. I did a Kickstarter with Mystery Men! to pay for the art (which may have been one of the earliest RPG projects to do a Kickstarter) and it worked reasonably well. I think I was aiming for a big $210, and I managed to rake in a whopping $290! (Which bought me a couple extra black and white illos!) The trick to be successful on Kickstarter, though, is in the premiums. For MM!, it was a free copy of the e-book and inclusion of the donators name in the product, as well as a thank you letter. I considered sending out hard copies of the book, signed by the author (natch), but when I calculated in the cost of buying the books and shipping them, I realized I'd need to ask for quite a bit more money in the Kickstarter, and given how new the idea of kickstarting a niche RPG project was at the time, I was afraid the project would fail to fund and I'd be out of luck.

After MM!, I started making enough money selling NOD and other products, that I felt comfortable just paying for art out of my profits. Since publishing is a hobby for me, I don't have to live off the proceeds of my work - I'm happy just to keep the hobby paying for itself. Blood & Treasure was a big project for me and cost a pretty penny in terms of art (at least for someone as small time as me), but it worked out and I made a profit on it (though just barely). While printing my own books and selling them would probably make me even more money, and make Kickstarters a more realistic proposition, I really prefer print-on-demand; less overhead for me, less fuss, and it keeps publishing a hobby rather than making it a second job I do not have time for.

The other drawback, to my mind, is that once you take that money, you're pretty well locked in to making a product and getting people's premiums to them. Oh, I suppose you could find a way to abscond with the filthy lucre, but given that I'm neutral with lawful good tendencies, I'd have a hard time doing that.

Let's take ACTION X as an example of why this can be a problem. Imagine I ran ACTION X as a Kickstarter. It funded, I started paying for art, and in the middle of the process I started realizing the game just was not working for me. Well, too bad sucker - you made promises and now you need to finish what you started, like it or not. Now, that actually did happen to me in the course of writing ACTION X (though without the binding promises, thank God), and I would have hated to be locked into the project after my passion for it faded away. As it is, I was free to ditch ACTION X and transform it into GRIT & VIGOR, for which the creative juices are flowing quite nicely.

For me, avoiding Kickstarters for my products boils down to freedom - freedom from the overhead implied in offering premiums, and freedom to proceed with a project as my passion takes me, without having promises I'm bound to fulfill hanging over my head.

So, what do you folks think about it?

And on a related note - The Tome of Monsters. This book will be a compilation of monsters that I've published in NOD over the years, including the multi-hued dragons, and the demon and devil lords from the Hellcrawl, with a few unpublished beasts as well, and maybe a few other bright ideas as they come to me. Oh - and each monster will be rounded out with a lair like the one's I've written for the S&W versions of the Tome of Horrors in the past. The book is almost completely written (since it is a compilation, after all), so the trick for me is the art. Some monsters already have art, since they appeared in past magazines. Most do not, and I'd dearly love to illustrate everything. The question, of course, is how?

At this point, the book contains approximately 300 monsters. Even if I could secure art for these monsters at $5 a pop (and I can't), we'd be looking at a $1500 investment. More realistically, I'd be looking at $20-50 per monster - so now we're talking about dishing out over $10,000 for art. I figure if I'm lucky I can sell 100 or 200 of these books, making maybe $3-5 per book sold - so investing $1500 to make maybe $300 to $1000 is not tenable. Remember - I'm not looking to get rich, just to break even.

I thought one way of making ends meet would be, of course, a Kickstarter campaign, but as you've read above (unless you strangely skipped to the end of the post), I'm leery about Kickstarters.

I've also thought about commissioning the art in the form of full page illustrations depicting multiple monsters, maybe locked in combat with some of the characters that first appeared in Blood & Treasure and The NOD Companion - though I'm not sure this would (a) work and (b) actually be any cheaper than lots of small bits of artwork.

So - what to do with the art for the Tome of Monsters? At this point, I'm leaning towards commissioning some great art from great artists for as many monsters as I can afford, and just accepting the fact that I ain't Wizards of the Coast.

Oh - and if you're an artist who would love to receive a commission for cold hard cash or a trade, let me know in the comments or by emailing me. I'd love to feature as many artists as possible, with as many styles as possible to make this thing more than just a collection of monster stats but also a fun community project.

Dungeon of the Apes Art!!!

Now I have the art (by Jon Kaufman, of course) - I'm going to have to do something with it.

Maybe a Blood & Treasure dungeon adventure that is Planet of the Apes themed. I do so many hex crawls, a dungeon crawl might be a nice change.

We'd need radiation, a nuclear bomb, mutated psychos with false faces and psionic powers, Roddy McDowell, a research lab, a half-buried Statue of Liberty ...

Happy V-D!

Gentlemen - love your ladies!

Ladies - love your gentlemen!

Musing on the Design of Star Wars

Image found HERE

I just finished listening to some folks talk about Star Wars and its possible future under Disney (main take-away - how can Disney screw it up more than Lucas?). The podcast ended with the tune played by the Cantina band, and that got me thinking about the over 1940's vibe of the original trilogy, and, more importantly, what I consider the design failure of the second trilogy. Among other problems with the second trilogy, I felt that they missed out on some design cues that might have cemented it into the same universe with the original trilogy.

Star Wars had a significant 1940's vibe to it - it was very much a recreation of 1940's sci-fi serials and WW2 movies - with some Akira Kurosawa thrown in for good measure. Okay - the cantina music was more 1920's, and the 1930's fills in as well - so maybe we'll call it a 1920's to 1940's vibe. Now, one cannot remove the design of a piece, even a pseudo-period piece, from their own time and place. That makes it an interesting mix of 1920's-1940's and late 1970's design (and boy, can you tell that the second and third movies were designed in the 1980's). The "seventies meets the past" look was nothing new, really - there was a definite interest in resurrecting the 1920's through 1940's look in that era, with a modern twist.

Luke and Leia appear to be about 18 years old or so, so the second trilogy should be taking place about two decades earlier. What I think would have been cool, then, is to make the second trilogy look very 1900's-1920's.

I guess what I'm getting down to is this: What might a very "early 20th century" Star Wars have looked like? A very aristocratic Galactic Senate in old fashioned military uniforms - a doughboy vibe to the soldiers and proto-storm troopers - bobbed hair on the ladies - a little more ornamentation on things than was necessary, that transition from the Gilded Age to Moderne - more of an Egyptian style to things - a waxed mustache on Yoda. Perhaps some of these elements were present in the second trilogy.

I don't know quite what it would look like, but it makes me wish I was an artist so I could explore the look of the thing.

Women, Cars and Spaceships ... A Retrospective

While driving to work this morning, I was listening to classical music and musing on the design of cars and spaceships. I don't mean real spaceships, of course - I mean the kind you see in movies, comic books, pulp fiction and television - the good stuff. I also started thinking about mens' taste in women, and how the styles of disparate things tend to conflate at different times. With that in mind, I decided I was going to put together some images from different years (or small spans of years) of the top spaceship of that time, the top car of that time and what were considered the top sex symbols of that time to see if they clicked.

Here we go ...

We'll begin with 1929 and Buck Rogers. The spaceship was still in the "could have been designed by lonely housewives" era. Fairly sleek and only a few doodads stuck to the outside of the ship. For our car, we have a 1929 Duesenberg - also pretty sleek, formal and yet also sporty. Whether Buck's spaceship had leather seats, I don't know. For our sci-fi beauty, we have Col. Wilma Deering, Buck's erstwhile companion and drawn as a classic beauty of the era - rounded face and graceful lips.

By 1936, Flash Gordon has burst onto the scene in the first of his film adaptations. The spaceship isn't much different than Buck Rogers' craft, though perhaps a bit sportier (check out the chrome!). Dale Arden, as played by Jean Rogers, conforms pretty closely to the earlier beauty standard, and the car isn't terribly different from the 1929 Duesenberg, though you'll note the nose is slanted back a bit.

1950 brought the film classic (?) Destination Moon. Destination Moon at least played on being hard sci-fi, though the design was definitely of the moderne period, with the sleek spacecraft. The beauty of 1950, Erin O'Brien-Moore was pretty sleek herself, and shows how tastes were changing at the dawn of a new decade. The car is a bit more compact than in the 1930's, but in this case it looks like the spaceship designs are beginning to presage developments in automobiles.

In 1956, Forbidden Planet put earthlings in a flying saucer (guess those captured German scientists were finally earning their keep). Beauty isn't much changed from 6 years ago, and the car, a 1956 Chevy Bel Air, is not yet exhibiting the giant fins that will grace vehicles in the late 1950's and early 1960's.

By 1966, Star Trek has premiered. The Enterprise is unlike any spaceship audiences have seen before, and also notable is that the sole beauty of the cast (unless you include Sulu) is a black woman! Nichelle Nichols typified late '60s beauty - curves and tall hair. The cars are becoming more slick as well - away from the tail-fins and into the muscle car era.

The next big leap, in this case back in some ways and forward in others, was 1977's Star Wars (you might have heard of it). For the first time on film, we get a real sense of the "starfighter" - fighter aircraft in space. Yeah, the Star Destroyers were pretty iconic as well, but you really can't beat the X-Wings and TIE Fighters for capturing the imagination of kids in that era. Our beauty is, of course, Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), who really found herself thrust into unfamiliar territory in her slave girl costume. The 1977 Ferrari pictures seems to have a similar profile to those X-Wings.

One last stop, and a leap forward to one of my favorite sci-fi series - Red Dwarf. Not American, and played for laughs, it introduced a completely utilitarian (and grandiose) spacecraft in the eponymous Red Dwarf. By 1994, we had maybe my favorite of all the sci-fi beauties introduced on this post - Chloë Annett as Kristine Kochanski (I like my women smart, beautiful and with a wry sense of humor) and the fairly utilitarian Rover. Substance over style in 1994 sci-fi.

Okay, there's many more I could do - various incarnations of Star Trek, Alien, etc. I'll leave further explorations to others.

Deviant Friday - It's a Free For All!

Looking for a quick post this fine Friday, so I thought I'd show off a few recent deviations at deviantArt that I enjoyed. If you like them, be sure to visit the artist and maybe consider purchasing a little something (assuming they're selling).

The BEST kind of party! by ~JoelRCarroll on deviantART

Pirate by *rogercruz on deviantART

Battle fragment by ~gugu-troll on deviantART

Vengeance is mine by *Scebiqu on deviantART

the Dragon Slayer by =travisJhanson on deviantART

Merry Christmas from the Land of Nod!

Quick note to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and all the blessings of the season. More than getting everything you wanted, I hope you all have everything you need (and are wise enough to know it, if you do). My Christmas present to you folks today is a quick preview of some new art I've commissioned for the forthcoming NOD Companion - all of it drawn by Jon Kaufman - for the classes collected in the book. Enjoy the art, and I hope you all have a wonderful day, whether you're celebrating or not.

Puritan by Jon Kaufman

Psychic by Jon Kaufman

She-devil by Jon Kaufman

Traveler by Jon Kaufman.

I'll be posting a couple new ones soon that will appear in the book - The Vigilante and the Femme Fatale.

Merry Christmas folks! Thanks for making me feel like a success with this little hobby of mine. Like many folks of the geeky persuasion, I've never had the best self image in the world, and your support over the last few years has done wonders for me. In the coming year, let's all remember to be kind to one another.

The Monsters of Henry Justice Ford - Part II

Today, I present three giants to confound (and stomp on) you precious PC's.

River Giant
Huge Giant; Chaotic (NE); Average Intelligence; Eddy (1d4)

HD 12
AC 17
ATK 1 slam (2d6) or 4 locks (1d4 + constrict)
MV 30 (Swim 40)
SV F4, R9, W9
XP 1200 (CL 13)

River giants are the children of the great rivers. They appear as massive humanoids with long, grey mustaches and beards which seem to flow and ripple with a will of their own. They dwell within rivers, sometimes in simple caves, but more often in submerged strongholds with courts of nixies and river nymphs.

In combat, a river giant can breathe forth, once per day, a fetid mist per the obscuring mist spell. Those trapped within the mist must pass a single Fortitude saving throw or succumb to filth fever. Their mustaches and beards can be used as tendrils to grab and constrict attackers.

Special Qualities: Resistance to cold

Jinnati
Large Giant; Chaotic (NE); Average Intelligence; Blaze (1d6)

HD 4
AC 14
ATK 1 slam (1d10 + 1d6 fire) or by weapon (+1d4 fire)
MV 30
SV F10, R14, W14
XP 400 (CL 5)

The jinnati, or fire-eaters, are a breed of fire-breathing ogres who dwell in volcanic hills in tropical regions. They have ruddy to dull green skin, lustrous black hair and sparkling eyes that suggest clever malevolence. Jinnati rarely wear armor, though when they do it is usually formed of glowing, red scales, and likewise when they arm themselves they do so with metal weapons. They have a profound lust for reddish and orange gemstones, and will almost anything to possess them, even behave honorably.

Jinnati can breathe a 15-ft. long line of fire once per day. This fire deals as many hit points of damage as the jinnati currently possesses (or half that with a successful Reflex saving throw). They can recharge this fire breath by eating fire – that is, inhaling flames from any sort of source larger than a torch.

Creatures grappled by the monsters suffer as though from a heat metal spell, in addition to suffering normal grapple damage.

Special Qualities: Immune to fire, vulnerable to cold

Stalo
Large Giant; Chaotic (CE); Average Intelligence; Roost (1d6)

HD 6
AC 15
ATK 2 claws (1d6) and bite (1d4)
MV 30
SV F9, R12, W12
XP 600 (CL 7)

Stalos are magical ogres that haunt the northern woodlands and steppes. They have dark brown to nearly black skin, leering yellow eyes and pronounced fangs.

A stalo possesses a set of pipes not unlike those of a satyr. When playing those pipes, those within 1 mile must pass a Will saving throw or be charmed (per the charm person spell) and convinced that they must journey to the source of the piping. Subjects within 30 feet of the piping must make an additional Will save or be held (per the hold person spell) for 1d6 rounds, during which time the stalo will kill them for its supper. A stalo can track unerringly on his home territory.

A stalo has one weakness, and that is running water. While they can cross running water, they do so slowly (movement rate of 5) and must pass a Will save each round or be either frozen with fear for one round.

Spells: At will—calm animals, speak with animals; 1/day—summon nature’s ally II

The Monsters of Henry Justice Ford - Part I

Henry Justice Ford, in case you, the reader, haven't heard the name, is one of the finest illustrators of fantasy and folklore to have ever come around the bend. Recently, Monster Brains did a very long post showcasing a ton of his work - I highly suggest taking a tour of the post and the site (one of my favorites).

Many of the works depict monsters that were new to me, either in the sense that I was unaware of the fairy tale in which they originated, or they were drawn in a way that sparked my imagination. I decided it might be fun to stat a few up for Blood & Treasure, and, if you continue reading, you will find that that is precisely what I've done.

By the by - I think the idea of a monster book divided up by great artists (in the public domain, of course) in the manner the old Deities & Demigods book was divided up by mythos, would be pretty cool, in case anyone wants to collaborate.

Three-Headed Draken
Medium Monstrous Humanoid, Chaotic (CE), Average Intelligence; Band (1d10)

HD: 2
AC:  14
ATK: 2 claws (1d6 + rend) and bite (1d4)
MV: 30
SV: F12 R15 W12
XP 200 (CL 3)

The three-headed draken are goblinoids with skin as black and as shiny as coal. They have feet tipped with cruel talons, mouths full of fangs, and generally lurk in ruins planted with fruit trees. They regard this fruit as a dragon regards its treasure, for the trees to which they are bound are the only ones from which they can draw sustenance.

Special Qualities: Regenerate

Black Master of the Beasts
Large Fey, Neutral (N), High Intelligence; Solitary

HD: 9
AC: 16
ATK: 1 club (2d8) or slam (1d6)
MV: 20
SV: F10 R9 W8
XP: 900 (CL 10)

A black master of beasts is a fey guardian of a particular woodland, having the animals of that woodland under his protection. Black masters appear as black-skinned giants with single eyes in their heads and single legs to support them. They wield massive iron clubs and are capable of summoning 30 HD worth of animals, dragons and magical beasts common to their woodland (i.e. they show up on a random encounter chart) to their service once per day. These animals arrive in 1d4 rounds.

Special Qualities – magic resistance, immune to fear

Spells – 3/day—augury, calm animals, hold animal; 1/day—divination, magic fang, quest

Scylla
Huge Aberration, Chaotic (CE), Average Intelligence; Solitary

HD: 16
AC: 18
ATK: 5 heads (1d8 + constrict)
MV: 10 (Swim 30)
SV: F4 R7 W5
XP: 4000 (CL 18)

Scyllas are primordial sea monsters, terrible abominations that haunt narrow straits, lying in wait for prey. They have bodies shaped something like hydras, with scaled skin and five thick necks that end in massive humanoid heads. These heads have beards of tentacles, six tentacles each. Scyllas communicate telepathically, and they can induce fear (as the spell) once per day per head in creatures with 5 or fewer hit dice. If one head of the scylla is casting a spell, the others are still capable of attacking.

Special Qualities – Immune to fear, immune to cold, regeneration, magic resistance 40%, resistance to electricity

Spells - 3/day—control water; 1/day—control weather

Enjoy Some Art While I'm Getting Blitzed [mild NSFW]

Every year, one of the brokers I work with takes all the staff out for a Christmas outing that involves a party bus, lots of drinks and something like a wax museum, go-carts or firing submachine guns. You know, the normal Christmas fare. So, while I'm out tomorrow (I'm writing this yesterday) getting sloshed and doing God-knows-what, you can enjoy some of my recent favorites at Deviant Art. Ta ta!

Oh, and we veer into NSFW territory at the end, so be forewarned - but it is spectacular, so if you have to wait until you get home, see that you do.

darjeeling by *BrianKesinger on deviantART

TLIID 117. The Endless and Hostess by *AxelMedellin on deviantART

Dead queen by *NeoArtCorE on deviantART

Autumn Wood Nymph by ~UlaFish on deviantART

Autumn Wood Nymph by ~UlaFish on deviantART

Stock creatures: The Dronhedon by *Cloister on deviantART

Dragonade by ~Pachycrocuta on deviantART

Legend of Luther Strode #2 - Cover by *sobreiro on deviantART

Phantom Lady by *KristenHughey on deviantART

One of my favorite cosplays ever!

And with no further ado ...

lady of the lake, inspired by Royo by *gestiefeltekatze on deviantART

Better than the original, in my opinion.

I Got Me a Logo!

A couple weeks ago, I commissioned Rowena Aitken - an artist I've collaborated with a few times on the Hex Crawl Chronicles from Frog God Games - on a logo. Since I write and publish under my own name, not a company name, I wanted something basic - just my initials. Initially (no pun intended) I was thinking of an homage to a famous old three-initial gaming company you might have heard of called TSR. As we discussed it, though, and she showed me some other samples, I actually went for something inspired by the logo for Yes (the band, not the affirmation). So, without further adieu - my new logo in color and black and white.

Look for it on NOD 18 in about a month!

Rowena is open for commissions - logos or otherwise - give her a look!

And one more reminder - all of my print products at Lulu are now 10% off for the holidays. Enjoy! Look for a Dragon by Dragon tomorrow ...

Monsters by Email

No, this isn't a project I'm working on - but it is a project I'm supporting. Artist Nicholas Cloister has started a new project to deliver images of original monsters by email to subscribers, monsters that they can use in their publishing ventures provided they follow a few provisos and a couple quid pro quo (to quote a famous genie).

The price is super reasonable, and, as you can see from the following images, the art is top notch. He's looking for more subscribers to make this a going concern, so if you'd like to see a few of these beauties (well, not these beauties, but new beauties) given monster stats in the pages of NOD or other of my publications, and if you have some projects of your own or just want some nice art to use at your table, give it a look HERE. For more samples of his art, click HERE.

Copyright Nicholas Cloister

Copyright Nicholas Cloister

Copyright Nicholas Cloister

Deviant Friday - Nephyla Edition

Nephyla's style reminds me of European, especially French, comic book art - creative, whimsical, great lines, great details. It's still a dream of mine to produce successive editions of a good rules lite retro-clone - say Swords & Wizardry for example - illustrated entirely by different artists. Nephyla would definitely be an artist I'd love to see give her take on old school fantasy gaming. If you like the work, make sure you visit the artist at DeviantArt.

+PORTRAIT+ Saskia by *Nephyla on deviantART


+PORTRAIT+ Kohaku by *Nephyla on deviantART


The Ved'ma by *Nephyla on deviantART


+PORTRAIT+ Melisende by *Nephyla on deviantART


+PORTRAIT+ Evelyne de Breuil by *Nephyla on deviantART


+PORTRAIT+ Selene by *Nephyla on deviantART


+PORTRAIT+ Clea by *Nephyla on deviantART


+COMMISSION+Tragedy by *Nephyla on deviantART


+PORTRAIT+ Elis by *Nephyla on deviantART


+PORTRAIT+Leith by *Nephyla on deviantART

Deviant Friday - Recent Favorites

Here are a few of the illustrations I've "favorited" (yeah, favorite is now a verb - get used to it) on DeviantArt recently. Enjoy!

Dejah Thoris 22 by Paul Renaud

SPELL CASTER by Eric Canete

Mermaid and her alter ego fish by Marta Nael

Halflings by Jeff Dee

(always one of my favorites - I should be getting the recreation of Morgan Ironwolf in the mail soon!)

Formula Waaargh! by Ralph Horsley

(Shame this game wasn't made - probably would have been fun)

Armour Breakdown by Ben Wootten

(I so prefer this to the more anime-inspired armor and weapons that show up in many fantasy RPG products these days.)

Beyond by Doc Shaner

Wonder Woman 52 by reiq

character study 07 by tahra

If you like these, be sure to visit the artists galleries as DeviantArt and their websites - maybe purchase a print.

See you all tomorrow with a Dragon by Dragon!

Deviant Friday - Nelson Danial Edition

Nelson Daniel produces striking pieces in a squared-off comic book style - great colors, nice imagination in pose and props. Enjoy!

More Zombies

Sloth

('cause nothin' is more D&D than the Goonies)

Pole Trooper

(Star Wars is starting to get pretty creepy ...)

Wild Blue Yonder

Pete

The Cape 1969

Deviant Friday - Nebezial

Some awesome work today by Nebezial - visit his gallery at Deviant Art!

 

todays warmup was ... on fireeeeee by *nebezial on deviantART

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she-ra...iiis not impressed...im on a roll here by *nebezial on deviantART

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i gave the...girl a tiger....girls...love tigers by *nebezial on deviantART

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maleficent..yeah cuz i heard of the movie by *nebezial on deviantART

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Monster of Monsters

Saw a neat illustration today at Super Punch by Kelly Tindal that I had to share ...

Naturally, something this grand must have some stats:

PATCHWORK MONSTER

Medium Construct; Chaotic (CE); Average Intelligence; Solitary

HD: 10 (50 hp)
AC: 16
ATK: 2 claws (1d4), bite (1d6 + energy drain) and snakes (1d4 + poison III)
MV: 30
SV: F 10, R 10, W 10
XP: 2,500 (CL 12)

A patchwork monster is perhaps the highest expression of the golem maker's art, as it is composed not of bits of humans, but of humanoid monsters. More importantly, the maker of a patchwork monster must preserve the special abilities of the creatures he uses. The traditional patchwork monster uses components from a medusa, werewolf and vampire

A patchwork monster's gaze turns people to stone for 1d6+1 days. A Fortitude saving throw negates this power. If a patchwork monster uses a special grapple attack with its bite, it can sink its fangs into a victim and drain blood, dealing 1d4 points of constitution damage, and gaining 1d6 temporary hit points for itself.

Special Qualities: Weapon resistance (silver weapons), immune to energy damage and drain, ability damage and drain and fatigue

Deviant Friday - Nathan Rosario Edition

Super busy today, so I won't gush over Nathan Rosario too much - but hey, just check the art and you can see why I follow him on deviantART.

Sphinx by Nathan Rosario

Fleshless One by Nathan Rosario

Kang with Strider by Nathan Rosario

Sky Temple by Nathan Rosario

Bronze Giant by Nathan Rosario

Female Thrall by Nathan Rosario