Dungeons & Drawings: An Illustrated Compendium of Creatures

By Blanca Martínez de Rituerto and Joe Sparrow

An illustrated encyclopedia of the best monsters from around the world, for fantasy fans and Dungeons and Dragons enthusiasts.

Whether they’re beasts, spirits, demons, or even aliens, most fantasy worlds are filled with monsters. Some are harmless—many more are deadly. Luckily for the discerning adventurer, this book is here to help distinguish between the two. Animators Blanca Martinez de Riuerro and Joe Sparrow have compiled three volumes of their popular series into one deluxe edition. Each creature comes with a full-color illustration, a set of simplified statistics, a description, and a history section indicating its folkloric history and the scientific phenomena that may have influenced its creation. With creatures like the Archdevil, Dryad, Fire Bat, Gold Dragon, Smoke Devil, Bomb Plant, Ettin, and Spirit Fox, any tabletop player will find the perfect creature for their next campaign.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9781524860226

Book preview

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Dungeons and Drawings: An Illustrated Compendium of Creatures. Copyright © 2019 by Blanca Martínez de Rituerto & Joe Sparrow. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews.

Andrews McMeel Publishing

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Key

- Alignment

- Element

- Type

- Stats

Monsters A-Z

Further References

About the Authors

Sketchbook

Introduction

My first experience actually playing a fantasy tabletop role-playing game was when I was around ten years old. I’ll spare you the details of my character, except to say he was a hybrid of warrior and wizard (a new concept that I found unspeakably cool) and wielded a bastard sword (mostly picked for the transgressive thrill of saying its name). The campaign was short-lived—we fought some orcs and some kind of small dragon, I think—but one memory that really sticks in my head was being permitted by our Dungeon Master to peruse the so-called Monster Manual, one of several books in which the game’s labyrinthine rules were supposedly contained.

It’s safe to say that my ten-year-old mind was completely blown. This document—shiny and hardback, but decorated as if it were a leathery old tome—not only contained illustrations and descriptions for the four or five creatures we had faced, but dozens of others as well. It induced in me a sort of narrative vertigo—making it starkly clear that the portion of the game world that we (a party of perhaps level 1 or 2) had experienced was but one tiny part of a cosmos of creatures that spanned whole dimensions. I had thought the Skeleton Lord we just fought (and barely defeated) was a worthy foe; now I was reading about beasts the size of houses, fiends that could petrify with a glance, tentacled horrors that would devour their prey mind, body, and soul. It was both humbling and terribly exciting. I, of course, immediately enquired of our DM what the strongest monster was, expecting something familiar to me like a dragon or a lich. Instead, he turned to a page bearing the name Tarasque and an illustration of a fearsome, Godzilla-like monster. It was awesome. The image stuck in my head.

We pronounced it Tara-skew at the time, because we didn’t know the name was actually French (it’s pronounced Ta-rask). We didn’t know that it came from an old folktale of a shelled dragon that supposedly terrorized the south of France in the first millennium, or that it was driven off by a saint called Martha. We didn’t know that there’s still a town named after it Tarascon either. There are theories that it might have been some sort of hippo or a large tortoise.

More often than not, behind even the most fantastical beast lurks the specter of a truth. Monsters rarely pop into existence out of nowhere, and in many cases—such as in the Tarasque’s —the longer they linger, the more mythology they accrue. What started out as a tortoise scaring peasants in medieval France gradually turned into a colossal, civilization-threatening monster (with a one-in-six chance to reflect any spell or projectile back at its user!). Folklore is a vibrant patchwork, constantly being added to and taken away from—and that process is very much ongoing in the work of fantasy authors, RPG writers, and imaginative GMs everywhere.

Obviously as artists, our main thrill is in coming up with cool and imaginative ways to depict these creatures. But it’s our interest in that patchwork of folklore and history (and the two are often inseparable) that keeps us coming back to this subject and ultimately drove us to make this book. Dungeons & Drawings actually started as an art blog way back in 2010 when Blanca and I were fresh out of art school. Our time studying had, for both of us, reignited our interest in tabletop RPGs and fantasy, and we were both avidly writing new stories and campaigns of our own. We would post illustrations every week or as often as we could manage, in an attempt to fill our time between paid jobs (which were admittedly a little thin on the ground at the time).

What started as an exercise became a passion, and that passion quickly attracted followers from all over the world as we uploaded new illustrations. Now, with this book, we’ve compiled the definitive collection of more than 100 of our favorite illustrations from across the last nine years, as well as over twenty brand-new creature designs that have never seen the light of day anywhere. Each monster is accompanied not only by a flavorful description and some easy-to-understand stats, but also a well-researched look at its folkloric origins in real world history. You might be surprised at what you discover about certain classic beasts—we certainly were on many occasions! Did you know, for example, that angels were once commonly depicted as quadrupedal, sphinxlike beings? Or that the word kobold shares its origin with the chemical element cobalt?

Anyway—I’ve probably rambled enough for this introduction, so let me just wrap up with a genuine, heartfelt thanks from both Blanca and myself to absolutely everyone who has followed our work on this project over the last decade. The engagement and encouragement we’ve had from friends and strangers alike has been so heartening, and it has pushed both of us to progress further as artists than I think we ever would have on our own. This book represents a lot of time and hard work from both of us, and we’re very proud to be able to share it with you.

Stay monstrous!

Joe Sparrow

2018

Key

This section explains the various symbols used to categorize each creature, as well as the scoring system used to indicate the strength of their abilities.

Alignment

Alignment is the moral disposition that each creature has. This is a good measure of their compassion or sense of altruism—a good-aligned being is much more likely to be trustworthy or make decisions that help the adventurer. Most creatures of animallike intelligence are considered incapable of the philosophizing necessary to make moral considerations and are as such categorized as neutral.

Note that a good alignment does not necessarily mean a creature is nonviolent or poses no threat to the adventurer. Creatures possessing certain magical abilities or inherent charisma may be able to mask their alignment or sometimes pose as another.

These creatures are moved by benevolence and altruism, generally striving to help the weak and needy. While they are sometimes naïve and can be manipulated or tricked, the more experienced among them know to temper kindness with wariness.

These creatures are neither good nor evil. With animals and the mindless, this is simply the inability to understand morality. Among sentient beings, it can imply a disregard for the consequences of one’s actions, whether good or ill.

These creatures are driven by self-interest and sadism. Lacking empathy, they are comfortable using any means, including deceit, to achieve their goals. Indeed, they may enjoy offering the facade of friendship only to later betray a companion.

Element

The classical elements are the building blocks of life, reflecting temperament, strengths, physical makeup, supernatural abilities, and home environment. All creatures are a mix of these elements, though never in perfect balance; one is always dominant over the rest.

A creature that is strongly aligned with one element may prove weak to its opposite counterpart—with the exception of Void, which has no opposing element.

Air

The sky, light, speed, and sound are associated with this element. Its creatures may be ethereal, capable of flight, or invisible. They can be absentminded and prone to flights of fancy.

Water

Emotion, cold, mystery, and mutability are associated with this element. Its creatures often live underwater. They are likely curious, fickle, and unreliable.

Void

Nothingness, eternity, the immaterial, and abstraction are associated with this element. Its creatures may seem inscrutable or strange, as if driven by forces outside of human experience.

Fire

Willfulness, anger, passion, destruction, and creation are associated with this element. Its creatures may be impulsive or dangerous, though not necessarily evil.

Earth

Nature, stability, minerals, and flesh are associated with this element. Its creatures may be stoic or dull, but they are highly durable and resistant to change.

Type

Just as the animal kingdom can be broken into phylum, class, and species, it is possible to divide supernatural creatures into certain types. These categories not only take into account the physical form of the creature, but also its spiritual characteristics, origins, inherent nature, and level of magical ability. Some creatures may exhibit characteristics of more than one type, in which case they have generally been placed into the category that suits them best for the sake of clarity.

Beast

Animalistic creatures that have little in the way of humanoid features, if any. Magical beasts may look like combinations of several mundane animals, the results ranging from horror to majesty. This category has no bearing on the intelligence of the creature some beasts are of an intelligence beyond human and are in fact responsible for teaching or leading humanoid races.

Examples: Cockatrice, Dragon, Sphinx

Construct

Creatures that have been built from non-living parts and animated using alchemy or magic. Most are simple automatons, only capable of following orders. More complex constructs may have spirits trapped inside them to animate them or otherwise have a soul, granting them higher intelligence or outright sentience. Truly intelligent constructs are often quite naïve when they first come to life, which can prove dangerous when combined with their above-average strength and durability.

Examples: Colossus, Golem, Homunculus

Humanoid

Creatures having mostly humanlike bodies or features. They are usually bipedal, possessing at least two arms and a face. Creatures in this category are sentient, but their intelligence can range from animal dullness to godlike genius.

Examples: Giant, Hag, Werewolf

Fairy

Creatures that embody an aspect of

Reviews for Dungeons & Drawings

[Alex O'Neill · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Lackluster art. No REAL stat blocks. Random arbitrary collection of boring art and creatures. Trying to delete really.