magic

Hello again everyone,

As promised (quite a while ago) here are the next set of the old pre-existing Dangerous Boys illustrations.  With this post I still haven’t quite got through all the drawings done before the inception of this blog but we are very close now.  Anyway…..

Grim relieves the vanquished Knoll leader of the burden of his exceptionally powerful magic War hammer.

This first scene is form the first adventure after the Dangerous Boys were officially born back on that shabby Lankmire rooftop (know by some, or more likely just by me as the “Rooftop of painful disappointment”).  This adventure saw a skeleton crew of Grim and Garibaldi (unfortunately the only DB’s available at the Time) plus a frighteningly two-dimensional repeating crossbow wielding NPC known as Terence Cumberland set off on a journey to obtain a variety of “fresh” Green Dragon organs for a mysterious client.  Soon after setting off we stumbled upon a disgusting clan of Knolls.  I seem to remember we had the element of surprise but I can’t remember if we bothered to use it.  Either way we ended up mercillessly hacking, shooting and bludgeoning them into oblivion (a predictable and satisfying turn of events, almost everything descends into the familiar violence of plan B at some stage). During this encounter Grim patiently hammered to death the Knoll chieftan who, as it happened was carrying a very powerfull Magic Dwarven hammer of returning and other delightful benifets.  This illustration is the immortalisation of Grim claiming ownership of this mighty piece of hardware and thus also claiming ownership over a brand new life as a valuable contributor to combat.  This was the end of Grim the armour plated, ill tempered ambulance and the dawning of Grim the armour plated, ill tempered ferocious torso smashing ambulance.  Rock on Grim!

How do I Look?

This next illustration is also from the Dragon Organ harvesting adventure.  It depicts Garibaldi back at the blue boar after the adventure.  Here we see him matching the glamorous new circlet of persuation +2 he picked up during the adventure with his existing wardrobe. I have since been told by the DM from this adventure that the circlet should not appear quite so girly and is infact tastefully subtle with delicate yet strong flowing curves, more reminiscent of a seemless fusion of bronze age celtic and classic elvin middle earth craftsmanship.  In my defence however I believed the circlet to be jewellery of a girly nature as it was “rescued” from among the personal belongings of a reclusive witch and her adopted Ogre son (a partnership which on later reflection bore a remarkable resembelance to the old hermit witch and her Ogre from Ralph Bakshi’s classic film “Fire and Ice”).  I seem to remember it was found among things the witch had stolen from innocent girly damsels and so forth.  Of course when I think about it there is probobly no basis for this assumption other than my own imagination incorrectly embellishing the fabric of the adventure.

Anyway the encounter which yielded the circlet in question was a cracker,  it involved the cold blooded ambush of the Ogre and his “Mum” by Terrance cumberland who stumbled across their reclusive hut while scouting ahead.  Terrances’ initial cowardly hail of crossbow bolts from the bushes failed to neutralise the Ogre.  This set back lead rather quickly to Garibaldi getting fried by a lightning bolt and shortly thereafter rendered comatossed by a fireball which gave him a frightful roasting and disintergrated all his clothing and equipement except for the sturdier magical items.  I’m pretty sure the new incarnation of “ultimate Hammer Grim” or perhaps “the Grim hammer” (sounds more awesome) polished off both Ogre and Witch, who incidentally I think we were suppossed to chat with rather than bludgeon to death.  Infact this encounter was so awsome it deserves an illustration which I will endeavour to produce at some stage.  Come to think of it, the Climax of this adventure also desperately needs an illustration.  This final encounter involved a spectacular combat between the party and a Green Dragon, during which a naked Garibaldi (courtesy of the afore mentioned witch) slew the creature with 3 consequtive critical hits.  That is 3 real life natural rolls of 2o!!! on a die 20, in a row!!!! exactly when he needed them!!!!! (of course if you don’t actually play D&D then this incredulous excitement is likely meaningless and excessively nerdy).  I might even try and find time to immortalise the naked dragon slaying moment in colour.

Garouks Ideal Beard

This Image is depiction of Garouks Ideal beard.  After a successful comclusion to the Dragon organ harvesting adventure came talk of the next adventure.  An exciting prospect which would see all the DB’s back on deck.  During the lead up Garouks player expressed a desire for Garouk to be given the opportunity (if  possible) to spend some of the adventure striding about resplendant in a fabulous and commanding beard.  The image above is how Garouk dreamed the beard might appear.  Happily when the adventure rolled around Garouk was afforded this glorious opportunity as were all the other DB’s Present.  While briefly on the run from what appeared to be the same Gnome super Villian from a previous adventure (the one that escaped Billy and garouk on the “rooftop of painful disappointment”) a mysterious ally kitted the boys out with magical fake beards in order to disguise them from the prying eyes of the Gnome super villain and his cohorts.

Stimulating the Urchin economy

This next illustration is from the Adventure after the Dragon organ collection job, the same adventure in which Garouks Beard fantasy came true.  This Scene captures an early moment in the adventure when the DB’s took to the underwhelming beer garden out the front of the Blue Boar to enact a daring plan of ruthless defamation against a wealthy buisiness man who had threatened them, a buisiness man they believed to be the Gnome super villian from their past.  I can’t remember what the threat was now, but the DB’s response was swift and involved Grim and Garouk paying vast numbers of street urchins to spread vicious rumours about their foe while Billy and Garibaldi got drunk and disgussed amendments to the plan that never quite evolved from the planning stage.  These rumours mostly involved the blatant suggestion that this Gnome was in reality a disgusting pervert with a disturbing preference for young boys.  I seem to remember Garouk and Grim adding further fuel to this savage and Hilarious attack by spreading another simultaneous rumour that any young urchin boy who goes to this Gnomes mansion can expect to be richly rewarded for their trouble.  This of course saw scores of young boys turn up to the Gates of the Gnomes mansion giving the lankmhire pulpulation more reason to be suspicious and perhaps begin to take these rumors to be the truth.  I believe we also payed Urchins to hurl shit and rotten eggs at the Gnomes mansion and payed another set of urchins to paint pro BD slogans around town declaring essentially that the Gome was “Going Down” in various creatively violent ways.  It was a masterful multi-layered attack which unfortunately quickly lead to the merciless torching of the Blue Boar.  This was a traumatic event which not only left the DB’s temporarily homeles but nearly claimed the life of Billy who burst into the flaming Inn to try and save his meager belongings.  Incidentally he did manage to save some of his things and xplode out of the second story window in a daze of lung ravaging smoke inhilation.  It was soon after this that the DB’s found themselves in an alley wearing fake beards.

Catching a Genie

This last scene is taken from the same adventure as the previous image.  It illustrates the moment the DB’s finally managed to capture a formidable Genie nerd in his fancy magical library fortress in the clouds.  Things had been progressing unfavourably since the Blue Boar had been burnt to the ground.  However there had been a recent breakthrough when the boys had been informed by a disgruntled employee of the Gnome super villain that he was controlling countless citizens with the aid of some freakishly powerful Genie enchanted magic acid (I have a reasonably strong recollection of the Gnomes henchman throwing enchanted acid into the faces of people he wished to control).  I seem to remember that his grand scheme was to take control of the merchant council and effectively put a strangle hold over the whole city.  This time the DB’s were fighting not just for their own selfish and obscure reasons but also for the fate of the city itself and the situation seemed Dire with far too many of the Gnomes puppets around for even the DB’s to hack their way through.  The unhappy employee suggested that the best course of action was to capture the Genie behind the magic and have him break the curse to even the odds a bit.  luckily this employee was a wizard who could transport the DB’s to the Genies Library in the clouds, of course we had to do him a solid too, something about his imprisoned sister or wife or something.  Anyway the boys were beamed up to the Magical realm were they carefully snuck into the fortress library like an awesome D&D SWAT team.  Once inside Garouk crept ahead into the Genies vast library were he was quietly studying and went for the backstab.  This attack proved a little less effective than we thought and the Genie transformed into a magic fueled Cyclone and began to toss the BD’s around like rag dolls.  Garibaldi thinking he had just had one of the greatest ideas in adventuring history rushed into the library and began threatening to burn the library to the ground if the Genie didn’t surrender.  The genie became considerably less cooperative, Garibaldi lit up the priceless books and the Genie became even more enraged.  I can’t quite remember the finer details of what unfolded next (I was substantially drunk by then) but essentially the boys continued with plan B until the Genie had been hacked and bludgeoned into submission.  when Garibaldi finally managed to stumble half conscious from the library inferno (where he had unfortunately trapped himself) the Genie was in custody, we used the three wishes he granted us to break the enchantment on the Gnomes henchman, do whatever we were supposed to for the wizard and something else I can’t remember.  after returning triumphantly  to Lankmire things fell more or less into place. After breaking into the Gnomes mansion through the sewers, and tearing our way inch by blood soaked inch through his house killing everyone who stood against us (including some of Garibaldis’ old comrades from his past as an elite house hold) we finally cornered our foe and put him to the sword, Billy’s sword I think. The City was saved and the DB’s increasing fame was set to grow even more.

Well thats all for now,

The next post will start show casing more recent illustrations and also display the last of the Dangerous Boys art work produced before I started this blog.

Chris.