Monstrous reflections

To kill time, I thought I would just throw out some views on random monsters from the Monster Manual.  Right now, my campaign is on hiatus as I reign them in and send them packing back to the monastery.  They were in Ravenloft (or a rewritten version of), which is great for Halloween season D&D.  Once it passes Thanksgiving though, I begin getting a bit more nostalgic for those early days and years of my meager experiences with the game.  And that brings me back to the ruins of the monastery from the first DMG.  The location of my first actual experience with playing D&D in 1983, and the original main goal of the party.

Not only seasonally does it feel better to depart the Gothic nature of Ravenloft, but simple practicalities are worth considering. Basically, my boys are getting older, and soon our oldest, and perhaps next oldest, will be departing the homestead for the big, wide world after all.  So best to regroup and do what I normally don't: pick them up and drop them where I want them.

Since it will take a little calculating and updating, my oldest son will be running his first game, using the classic Keep on the Borderlands.  So in the meantime, unless something juicy comes from that adventure, I'll just throw our random thoughts on this or that monster or whatever catches my eye with the minuscule amount of time I have to spare.

In this case, first up, Gray Ooze.

 

One of the many amoeba like creatures from the 1st Edition.  I always liked the artwork.  I notice that in every case, the slimes and jellies are portrayed in a dungeon-like setting.  No simple portraits.  They are put against something or another: a stair, a cave, a doorway.  I guess that's because it's easier to visualize than just a picture of a blob.  And, of course, "blob" is what I always imagined fueled at least some of the inspiration for these creatures. 

I also like the setting in this particular pic.  It evokes.  Much of the early artwork did.  Where is it coming from?  Where is it going?  What else is in the room that the viewer is standing in?  Whenever I design a dungeon, I try to have at least one stair descending next to a wall just to pay this homage.

Speaking of Monster Manual Art

One of my favorite monster pics - ever.  Not least being because of the revisions of the Fire Giant in other, later versions of D&D.  Here, he is brute.  Just brute.  Not only brute strength, but brute.  And of course, a fine quality piece of work by Trampier.  One of the best. 

The Art of the early D&D

Was racier and, at times, more brutal than all we achieve with the most advanced CGI graphics today.  Much has been said about the tendency toward nudity and eroticism in the crude days of early D&D's artwork. 

But have you ever looked at some of the action pics?  Check them out some time.  The original Monster Manual alone has some pretty rough pictures when it comes to violence and death. Sure, it's pen and ink - at best.  Sometimes the drawings are cartoon-like, and that helps diminish the punch. But if you let your mind wrap around some of them, you'd be hard pressed to find a proportional level of graphic death and suffering in a modern SAW reboot.

Here are a couple to illustrate the point:

 

I've only used Rot Grubs a couple times.  And I think our party only reached into an infested area once.  It was pretty fun as encounters go.  But the thought.  If you stop and think of this pic, imagining it in modern, graphic imagery, this is pretty bad stuff.  Given what my party went through with only a couple grub, this poor fellow isn't long for the world.

 



 

This is a case where the medium of the day diminishes what would be a graphic death scene if it was with today's production standards.  That's a lot of blood.  He's gone, and soon to be nothing but bones and rags once the jackalwere is through dining on him.  

 



This is a case where the humor undercuts the graphic nature of this fellow's potential demise.  Yes, he might make it.  It looks like he's certainly not giving up.  But half of him is already in the pike's maw, and that can't be good.  Despite the goofy expression in the cartoonish presentation, that's nothing less than Quint meeting his demise in the jaws of another famous giant fish.

 

This one is also rough.  In some ways, rougher than modern treatments.  He's in agony and it's obvious why.  Being eaten by a scorpion is never a good thing no matter how you slice and dice it.  The flashy scorpion battles in the reboot of Clash of the Titans didn't come close to this level of horror, though the original Harryhausan version was much more atmospheric, and hence more terrifying in its own right.  But in terms of intensity and violence, you don't get much better for old black and white drawing.



 

 

File this one alongside the Jackalwere picture above in the 'moderated by medium'.  If this was modern art and graphics, that would be one serious demise.  Far more graphic than most of the artwork in recent editions of D&D.  Compare it to those, and this is nothing less than death, brutal and painful.  

Perhaps one of the most graphic pictures in all of D&D - ever.  Think about it.  That poor fellow is one hapless and unfortunate man.  His fingers are splayed, so he's still alive.  Perhaps even struggling.  But there isn't much struggle left.  His chest on up is firmly engulfed in the mouth of the giant toad.  Unless he has some buddies nearby, it's not going to be a pretty ending.  Nothing in any recent D&D product art I've seen comes close. 

Again,  I realize that it is different, and in some ways, subdued by the limitations of the art form of the day. I know it's possible to have more blood and gore and shock in modern graphics.  I know there are places where you can find much, much worse.  But given the day, given that it was when audiences ran screaming out of the movie JAWS because of its blood and violence, and how restrictive things still were, you must admit that was some pretty graphic artwork for its genre.