17 April 2013

One Vile Pile at a Time, Petty Gods Style

The Petty Gods project, as I'm sure most folks know by now, has BLOWN UP. Greg over at Gorgonmilk shot some emergency adrenaline into the heart of what had been a dead/indefinitely forestalled collection of less than commonly worshiped deities from all sorts of OSR folks. You can get the full story here.

I volunteered my scratching and markmaking, completing a total of four particularly foul or corrupt outer beings thus far with more on the way. My first two, the Twin Blasphemies Nug and Yeb, come from Lovecraft through a number of stories which harbor no physical description aside from 'they look like their mom, Shub-Niggurath.'

So I consulted the Mythos-corrupted scholar Robert Parker, tended to his recommended reading (I call it 'research' to those who question my time management), listened to Robert Price read aloud Joe Pulver Sr.'s channeling of "The Black Litany of Nug and Yeb," followed the faint scent of Mesoamerican mythology from the stories, and arrived at a mixture of Shubby and physical descriptions of the Black and Red versions of the Azteca god Tezcatlipoca (Black Tezcatlipoca and Xipe Totec, respectively).

Now keep in mind this was my personal path to crafting an image for the two, as the illustrious James Mishler is writing up the  full descriptions for the two!

This is what came out:


 I also completed The Beast of Unbidden Challenges, based on an excellent description from Nate, the creator of A Desolate Shrine. Here's the cutie:


Following with the mad, lost god Qu'pan, developed by Richard Iorio II, who runs Rogue Games (Colonial Gothic; Shadow, Sword & Spell).


Full stats and descriptions for these godlings can be found in the forthcoming Expanded Petty Gods over at Gorgonmilk. Cheers!

15 April 2013

April Art Lottery - Infected Beasts of Hubris

Mike Evans was the first person to submit an idea for the monthly art lottery when I started back at the end of January, and this month that very first entry was drawn!

Mike runs a fantastic blog over at Wrath of Zombie, and he is perpetually writing gaming material, ranging from system adaptations to original campaign worlds. One of those worlds of his, a grim and grimy sword & sorcery world called Hubris, has gleefully commandeered much of his attention. And it kicks ass.

Mike wanted a Tetsuo: Iron Man inspired plague beast fighting and infecting body guards. When I asked Mike to elaborate, he ended up mentioning The Thing as additional inspiration, and that's when I found the look for the beast. Here's the scene:






Ultimately this beast doesn't have quite as much metal on his body as Tetsuo, but the cancerous ick makes up for the missing industrial ugliness.Cheers Mike!

As always, feel free to keep submitting ideas! The next drawing goes down on the 5th of May.

You can submit here.