Sunday, April 25, 2010

cyclops orcs of Britain


From the UK edition of the Holmes edit of D&D Basic.

13 comments:

  1. A cyclops style dungeon-goon monster type isn't a bad idea, especially if their eyes did something like cast glowing beams of red light or saw thru illusions or whatnot.

    On the plus side for the PC's you definitely wouldn't have to worry about missile fire from these guys...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well that explains a lot about orcs

    ReplyDelete
  3. The THEORY of the origins of the cyclops MYTH is based on the Greeks finding elephant skulls on the island of Sicilly

    for an entertaining read place

    "Myth and geology sicillian elephants"

    in your search engine

    ReplyDelete
  4. What a great illustration. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Is that one of the fabled pieces of internal art by Fangorn? I have his graphic novel of Gemell's "Legend"; it's stunning work.

    @Clovis: The First Fossil Hunters - apparently there was a whole Ancient Greek industry of looting fossil bones for display in temples as ancestral heroes.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm curious about the artist as well. Can you tell us who it is, and post a couple of other pics from this?

    ReplyDelete
  7. I have no other pics from this book, but I'm pretty sure that it says 'Fangorn' in the bottom right corner.

    ReplyDelete
  8. @ Clovis Cithog
    I've seen stuff about the ancient Greeks and what they made of fossils, and it is fascinating.

    One particularly interesting note was the possibility that they came up with the gryphon based on finding ceratopian skeletons. Makes sense, a quadruped with a beaked skull...

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous11:51 PM

    The other pictures from UK Holmes:

    http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=20401&p=779812#p779812

    ReplyDelete
  10. The artist is Fangorn, who has a website here. he did quite a bit of work for Games Workshop in the early days, including this edition of D&D, and a few Warhammer pieces. From the looks of it, he's mainly moved into concept art for films nowadays.

    ReplyDelete
  11. These orcs are clearly suffering from a genetic mutation called Cyclopia [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclopia ].

    Given the apparent frequency of the problem it suggests all these orcs come from a small family group that has been in-breeding.

    ReplyDelete
  12. How do you keep finding all this mega-cool stuff???

    ReplyDelete
  13. wow, that's some really nice artwork!

    I thought they gave up one eye so they could see the future, but were tricked by the Beast of Krull and can only see the time of their own death.

    ReplyDelete