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 knew that no amulet or charm, no spell or invocation could protect him from the gaze of the beast, and he despaired of striking at her. She had always protected herself from its glance, and now her mask was abandoned, and she looked full face upon her familiar.

She, of simple flesh and blood, now stood before the dragon and lived, and stayed warm, and of human vitality! So, he stepped forward to kill her, no longer fearing the gaze of the beast, and looked upon it, and his blood ran cold in his veins. His limbs stiffened, and his tongue thickened in his mouth, and he solidified, and succumbed. Now, what remains of him, hard stone as it is, 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 passtime, you'll grant. My false persona was perfect, I might also say - the spectacles and the wispy goatee, the stooped posture, the high pitched voice - how I love to playact! But I was really there to lull them into a false sense of security, to accustom them to my simpering presence, and then to fool them and to hunt them, whether in numbers or individually - and I had caught one. Now, that false persona could be abandoned. Now, I could show myself as I really am. Now, I would dispose of him, and send his soul to hell!

Cleaving Black Waters

From Olagole himself the call came, its wail heard through the living rock of the earth, then transferred in rippling vibration through the air, so even the meanest creature of the land or sea could sense it, and hide away for fear of what was to come.

In far off Myrnior, Naris the Owl God heard the call, and rose from his aerie, and as he rose his wings fairly blotted out the sky. His minions and myriads oozed from their holes and hiding places, and he marshalled them in serried ranks, and directed those hordes to the Sea of Galaj. At once the Black Ship issued forth, and its onyx prow cut through the supine waves like a sword through flesh. At a command from Naris its oarsmen chanted their battle hymns, in a sick rhythm of death and dreams of slain foemen to come.

Devil On My Heels

I had been foolish. I had ventured out into the Rilby flats, not in force, but with only one companion. Even worse, we had no weapons of any consequence. I had only wanted a brief respite, a quiet moment away from the tension, the knowledge that only with constant watchfulness and remorseless brutality could we continue to go on. And now I was out in the open, and a Saurial was bearing down on me from 200 meters away. I knew that I would never reach the safety of the 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

We had been in orbit around Anetis 11 for almost a month. During that time we had conducted extensive analyses of the planet's atmosphere, gravity etc, and further, of its teeming flora and fauna. Of advanced technologies or civilizations we found no sign.

So, following the usual protocols, we sent down a B-class shuttle, crewed with a complement of three, to set up our initial base - and it was there that we saw it. We had scarcely set down when it stepped out from a cut in the rocks. It loomed above us, utterly still, and obviously a product of a Class 7 civilization. Our scans had failed us. In addition, it held a mighty weapon in its left hand. Yet I knew we were not in danger. There was something its eyes and expression that told me that 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 untended, not even puzzled over, just an insensate mass of stone, for well nigh a millenium. Once what it really was had been recorded in the chroicles, and further elaborated on in the Kradana Scrolls, so that the spells of protection were maintained, and it slept undisturbed for a millenium in the crypt where it had been interred.

But in that dark millenium much passed away, and Oriaste held sway over the world, and even he was unaware of what lay resting in that fell crypt.

But then She who must not be named, Oriaste's satrap for two centuries, touched the statue with her depravity, for she had discovered its import, and it stirred, and she returned it, which had once lived, to a terrible new and corrupted life. It was a life she now commanded, and she commanded it to destruction and death, and to the end of the reign of Oriaste.

Lord of Death

Fifteen times they assailed our shield wall, and fifteen times we repulsed them in blood and death. But we paid a price, and on the sixteenth asault our line wavered and broke, and many comrades fell beside me, and I knew my end was near.

Then 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. With one terrible swift stroke it laid them low in their myriads, and was gone, and all was silence.

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

Mystic Bridge

Until that moment we had despaired. We had been cut off from the land, isolated and, we knew, being prepared for the final eradication of our habitations, our culture, and our people. We had sent messages by many means to those who might help us, who might deliver us from this terrible seige, but we heard nothing, and recieved no message in return. Our end seemed near as starvation stalked our settlements, and desperation gripped our hearts.

Then 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

Before I ever saw him I sensed him. And before I ever saw him I knew my perceptions were true and he was real, and not the fevered dreams of a callow youth - which is what I was. Then, and it was years before he fully showed himself, I would catch glimpses of him from afar. I knew to let him be, and to stay quiet when he was near, and watch.

Eventually he did fully show himself. 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 like an old west shootout. I'm being sarcastic, of course. But really ... there was little old me, and there was that big ugly mech, and they made sure we would cross paths for one final showdown. See how phony that all is? They figured if that showdown happened as they engineered it, I'd be done, and right out in the open too, and they'd look really good, and I'd be a smear of grease on the ground ... which is what they wanted. You know I could have rubbed that thing out any time I wanted to in my way, and in my time, but I let them set it up - why not? Let them do all the work, and then I'd rip it up, and the egg would be on their face. See how beautiful that is!