What is an RPG?

RPG stands for Role Playing Game. This is a game where players can take on the role of characters in a fictional, often fantasy, setting and play out a drama or story within the parameters of the game. Often a Game Master or Dungeon Master presides over the game, and makes sure things run smoothly.

Famously, Dungeons and Dragons (hence Dungeon Master) was the first TTRPG (Table Top RPG), debuting in 1974, and is still the industry leader today.

Usually these games have printed handbooks that lay out the rules of the game, and provide infomation and artwork to enhance game play.

Although I haven't worked for Dungeons and Dragons, the illustrations you see here were produced for companies like: Iron Crown, FASA, Palladium Books, Green Ronin, and Steve Jackson Games.

Interestingly, despite having done hundreds, if not thousands of RPG illustrations, I have never actually joined in any gameplay. Perhaps then, there are new worlds that await me - I know there are!

Basilisk

He was so surprised - she, of flesh and blood, had has stood before the dragon and lived, and stayed warm, and of human vitality.

So, he stepped forward to kill her, not fearing the gaze of the beast, and gazed upon it, and solidified, and succumbed.

Now, what remains of him resides in her trophy room ... forever.

Black Cultist

I was not there by accident. Of course, I had posed as a man fascinated by the ruins and remnants of another time - an eccentric but purely harmless pastime, you'll grant. But I was really there to hunt them, whether in numbers or individually - and I had caught one. Now, I would dispose of him, and send his soul to hell!

Cleaving Black Waters

Then the Owl God rose from its aerie, gathered its minions to its side, and called its hordes to the Sea of Galak. The Black Ship issued forth, its prow cutting through the supine waves like a blade through soft flesh, and its oarsmen chanted their battle hymns, dreaming of slain foemen to come.

Devil On My Heels

It was almost on me, and I knew that I would never reach the safety of the sheltering structures in the distance. So I called to my companion to help me, and I turned to face the thing. We would not survive, but we would face death together, as we had faced everything else.

First Contact

It loomed above us, utterly still, but holding a mighty weapon in its left hand. Yet I knew we were not in danger. I knew it was as curious about us as we were curious about it. So I activated my translator and began to speak ...

From A Dark Place

The statue had rested in a dark place, forgotten and ill tended, not even puzzled over, just an insensate mass of stone. But she touched it with her depravity, and it stirred, and was returned to a corrupted life. It was a life she now commanded, and she commanded it to destruction and death.

Lord of Death

In horror I saw an impossible figure before me, and I bent low to strike at it, but it strode over me, and walked beyond me to the foemen. Then, with one terrible swift stroke it laid them low in their myriads, and was gone.

I was left alone on the field of death, triumphant, unworthy, and desolate.

Mystic Bridge

Far, far out in the surging sea we saw the stones begin to rise like living things. From beneath the waves slowly they rose, implacable and oblivious to the roiling water that assaulted them, yet still they rose. From those first stones, long arms of living rock reached out to connect them all in a mystic bridge. Then, from fair Aspidelle rode great Sarpedon, and we knew our prayers of supplication had been heard.

Prophet of Eagles, Prophet of Waves

He often stood on the oddly shaped rocks just off the shore, and I often stood on the shore and watched him. He suffered me to do that. Sometimes it seemed he watched me as avidly as I watched him. But one day a mighty vision spread out in the sky behind him, and he knew I saw its truth, and he beckoned me to join him. I did, and the Teaching began.

Triple Target

It was big - really, how could I miss it? Yes, I let it get very close, but that was to play with its handlers, to taunt them and make them believe they had a chance to kill me. They never did.