MONSTERS, SORCERERS AND ONE SUSPICIOUSLY SMOKING BOTTLE

Some fantasy collections give you six nearly identical warriors, three women in improbable armour and a dragon that looks faintly embarrassed to be there.

Brad McDevitt Stock Art – Fantasy Collection 11 is made of stranger stuff.

There are gargoyles, werecreatures, undead hordes and a mad sorcerer. A knight is having trouble with rats. Something unpleasant has happened in a crypt. A Puritan has arrived armed for doctrinal disagreement, while elsewhere a fighter has brought a flintlock to what everyone else assumed would be a sword fight.

The collection contains 25 separate TIFF illustrations, all distinct. It ranges from traditional dungeon fantasy and gothic horror to black-powder adventure, weird magic and the sort of monster-heavy setting where humanity survives mainly through stubbornness and sharpened metal.

Use it for bestiaries, adventures, campaign settings, fiction, ’zines, handouts or to replace the empty rectangles presently scattered through your layout like silent accusations.

IN THE FOLDER

The supplied illustrations are:

• Dark Summoning

• Disturbed Crypt

• Dragon and Horde

• Fantasy Undead

• Gargoyle 2

• Gargoyle 3

• Gargoyle

• Jennihaniver

• Knight and Rats

• Mad Sorcerer

• Malevolent Princess – black and white

• Medium

• Ogre Attack

• Puritan Warrior

• Serpent Woman

• Sinister Castle – black and white

• Sinister Spinster

• Smoking Bottle

• Storm Riders

• Werecrocodile

• Werewolf

• Mummy

• Vampires

• Vood Mask

• Fighter with Flintlock

There are 25 files and 25 different illustrations. No creative arithmetic is required.

The names are taken from the supplied filenames. They indicate the artist’s broad intention, but they need not become official names or immutable truths within your setting. Rename the characters, reclassify the creatures and make the artwork work for you.

THE DEAD HAVE BECOME ORGANISED

The collection has a substantial undead contingent:

• Disturbed Crypt

• Fantasy Undead

• Mummy

• Vampires

Disturbed Crypt is a ready-made adventure opening. Someone has broken into a burial place, something has broken out, or both have occurred in an order the investigators will need to establish.

It can introduce grave robbery, necromancy, a violated ancestral tomb or the discovery that the crypt was sealed to keep something inside rather than thieves outside.

Fantasy Undead supplies a group rather than a solitary corpse. It can illustrate an undead faction, a mass rising, the servants of a necromancer or the welcoming committee at the bottom of a staircase nobody thought to check.

The Mummy brings the familiar charm of ancient curses, wrapped cadavers and archaeology conducted without sufficient respect for warning inscriptions. Place it in a tomb, museum, ruined temple or modern drawing room after somebody has unwisely imported the contents of a burial chamber.

The Vampires piece can support a blood-drinking court, predatory family, hidden cabal or several creatures who have found that hunting together reduces administrative overhead.

These illustrations can occupy separate chapters of a bestiary, or form one larger problem. Perhaps the disturbed crypt belongs to the vampires, whose servants have awakened the mummy while searching for an older power beneath the tomb.

Nobody involved will accept responsibility.

GARGOYLES IN TRIPLICATE

Three distinct gargoyle illustrations appear in the collection.

They are not alternate versions of the same piece. Each is separate artwork, giving you several ways to populate a cathedral, fortress, ruined city or magician’s tower with hostile masonry.

A gargoyle can be:

• A living stone predator

• An architectural guardian

• A demon bound into sculpture

• A familiar perched above the streets

• A defensive construct

• A creature that remains motionless while watched

• The reason local roofers demand danger money

One gargoyle can become a singular monster. Three allow you to depict a species, defensive host or hierarchy of creatures without repeating the same illustration.

They also make good visual punctuation. A narrow gargoyle image can sit beside a sidebar or monster entry; a larger piece can introduce the chapter in which the architecture finally begins fighting back.

The traditional test remains reliable: look away, look back and count them.

MAGIC BEING HANDLED IRRESPONSIBLY

Dark Summoning, Mad Sorcerer, Medium, Smoking Bottle and Vood Mask cover several different approaches to supernatural power.

Dark Summoning gives you a complete incident rather than merely somebody holding a staff. A rite is under way. Whether the summoner is calling, binding, banishing or desperately attempting to send something back remains open.

The Mad Sorcerer can be a villain, failed scholar, court magician, cursed adviser or entirely rational man pursuing a goal that happens to require a cellar full of screaming.

The Medium suits séances, spirit communication, divination and adventures where the dead are willing to speak but remain irritatingly vague about names and dates. The figure could be genuine, fraudulent or genuine while pretending to be fraudulent because actual necromancy attracts the wrong sort of official attention.

Smoking Bottle is a particularly useful magical prop. It might contain:

• A spirit

• A genie

• A curse

• A potion brewing without supervision

• Someone’s soul

• A poisonous vapour

• A magical message

• The consequences of mixing two liquids clearly labelled DO NOT COMBINE

The Vood Mask can become a ritual object, spirit vessel, tribal artefact, cursed disguise or the face adopted by an occult society. The supplied filename is broad and culturally imprecise, so any specific tradition should come from the setting and research of the project using it.

Magic items, ritual scenes and occult figures give a fantasy book texture beyond another procession of armed characters. They show what people believe, fear and meddle with when ordinary methods fail.

THE SORCERER HAS A CASTLE

The black-and-white Sinister Castle gives the collection a proper location.

It can be used for:

• A tyrant’s fortress

• A necromancer’s seat

• A ruined stronghold

• A vampire’s ancestral home

• A mountain citadel

• A prison

• The structure visible on the horizon immediately before the guide refuses to continue

Castles are not merely scenery. They organise an adventure.

The walls create an obstacle. The towers create objectives. The gates decide how openly the characters intend to proceed. The dungeons provide somewhere for the missing villagers to have been taken.

Place the Mad Sorcerer inside, Gargoyles upon the roof and the Fantasy Undead in the courtyard. You now have a substantial encounter site with very little additional persuasion.

The characters will still enter through the drainage tunnel.

They always do.

A PRINCESS AND A SPINSTER, BOTH SINISTER

The collection includes a Malevolent Princess and Sinister Spinster, which sounds less like a character list and more like the opening line of a particularly vicious family history.

The princess might be a scheming royal, cursed heir, political hostage, sorceress or innocent woman burdened with a frankly prejudicial filename. “Malevolent” can remain the artist’s suggestion rather than an established fact.

She may be the villain.

She may merely have excellent cheekbones and a court full of enemies.

The Sinister Spinster could be a wealthy recluse, village elder, occult practitioner, aunt with an alarming inheritance arrangement or the sole surviving witness to events everyone else has agreed never to discuss.

Both images are useful for intrigue because they depict people with whom the characters can speak, bargain and make catastrophic assumptions.

A dragon may burn the village.

A princess can have the characters legally declared responsible for it.

THE MONSTERS HAVE ARRIVED

The Ogre Attack, Werewolf, Werecrocodile, Serpent Woman and enigmatic Jennihaniver provide the collection with a varied assortment of living or transformed creatures.

Ogre Attack shows violence already in progress. It can illustrate a road ambush, village raid, wilderness encounter or the point at which negotiations with the large fellow have conclusively failed.

The Werewolf is immediately useful in horror-fantasy, gothic settings, wilderness adventures and campaigns where everyone insists upon travelling during a full moon despite repeated experience.

The Werecrocodile offers something less overused. It can inhabit swamps, river settlements, ancient ruins or hot, crowded cities built beside suspiciously deep water. The creature could be cursed, hereditary, divine or the result of experimental magic.

The Serpent Woman might be a transformed human, member of a serpent people, temple guardian, sorceress or entirely separate species. She can serve as antagonist, patron, monster or player character according to the needs of the setting.

The file titled Jennihaniver presents a distinctive fantasy figure without supplying a clear taxonomy. That is useful rather than inconvenient. Treat it as a named character, unusual creature or supernatural being and provide your own explanation.

A stock-art filename should not be allowed to bully the world-building.

RATS, KNIGHTS AND THE COLLAPSE OF DIGNITY

Knight and Rats offers a welcome change from the usual heroic pose.

A knight confronting vermin can be funny, grim or genuinely dangerous depending upon the size, number and habits of the rats involved.

The scene could accompany:

• A sewer expedition

• A plague outbreak

• A dungeon infestation

• A swarm encounter

• The discovery of something beneath a city

• A knight learning that expensive armour does not prevent creatures entering through the joints

It is the sort of illustration that makes an adventure feel lived-in. Not every threat is an ancient dragon or world-ending demon. Sometimes it is dark, hungry and coming through a hole behind the flour barrels.

Rats also imply location: granaries, tunnels, crypts, cellars, ships and neglected streets. Put the image on the page and much of the atmosphere arrives with it.

DRAGON AND HORDE

Dragon and Horde is a large-scale fantasy image: not a lone monster waiting politely in a room, but a creature associated with massed followers, treasure, victims or battlefield chaos.

It can illustrate:

• A dragon’s army

• A siege

• A monstrous invasion

• A warlord’s host

• A climactic encounter

• The section of the campaign where the characters realise the problem is no longer local

Dragons are familiar fantasy currency, but context matters. A dragon alone is a monster. A dragon with a horde is a political and military problem.

Who serves it?

Why?

Are they enthralled, allied or merely terrified?

Has the dragon conquered a kingdom, inherited one or decided that taxes are more efficient than periodically eating the population?

The illustration has enough scale to carry a chapter opening, title page or major adversary section. It is the sort of piece that earns more space than another small portrait tucked between stat blocks.

STORM RIDERS

Storm Riders brings movement and spectacle into the collection.

The riders could be supernatural horsemen, cavalry caught in impossible weather, heralds of a storm god or raiders whose arrival is always accompanied by thunder.

Use the piece for:

• A wild hunt

• An approaching army

• Elemental riders

• A cursed company

• A prophetic vision

• The beginning of a battle

• Travellers whose route across the sky is considerably more direct than the road

The illustration can work literally or symbolically. It might depict an actual encounter, a legend, a tapestry, a dream or a warning painted by somebody who saw the riders once and did not survive long enough to explain.

Storms already bring darkness, noise and confusion.

Adding cavalry is excessive.

Fantasy is allowed to be excessive.

BLACK POWDER AMONG THE SWORDS

The Puritan Warrior and Fighter with Flintlock give the collection a useful early-modern edge.

They fit black-powder fantasy, witch-hunting, pike-and-shot settings, colonial adventures, weird history and worlds where magic has had to adjust to the invention of portable firearms.

The Puritan Warrior may be a monster hunter, soldier, religious zealot, investigator or stern professional whose wardrobe permits very little frivolity.

The fighter appears armed with a flintlock and other adventuring equipment, making the image suitable for a character who bridges traditional fantasy and early gunpowder technology.

These pieces are particularly welcome in a genre that too often wanders from antiquity to the late Middle Ages and then stops as though nobody subsequently invented anything interesting.

A flintlock does not remove magic from fantasy.

It merely gives the wizard another reason to act first.

A PRACTICAL COLLECTION FOR PUBLISHERS

Fantasy Collection 11 has enough range to work across several parts of a book.

The monsters can fill bestiary entries. The castle and crypt establish locations. The summoning and ogre attack provide full scenes. The princess, medium, sorcerer and fighter supply character portraits. The bottle and mask can illustrate treasure or occult chapters.

That balance matters.

A folder filled entirely with creature portraits may look impressive until the manuscript needs a town, ritual, object or ordinary supporting character. This collection offers more than one visual note.

It is particularly suited to:

• Traditional fantasy role-playing games

• Gothic fantasy

• Weird fantasy

• Black-powder fantasy

• Dark fantasy

• Bestiaries

• Adventures and campaign settings

• Fantasy-horror crossovers

• Independent fiction and gaming ’zines

Commissioned artwork remains ideal for signature characters, exact locations and anything central to your setting’s identity.

Stock art handles the rest: incidental monsters, supporting figures, atmospheric scenes and those parts of the layout that need a good illustration without requiring six emails, a sketch round and an emergency extension to the deadline.

Twenty-five distinct images can cover a substantial part of a modest publication.

They can also sit in your art library and solve unrelated problems over several years.

The gargoyle will not complain about being typecast.

EXACT FILE BREAKDOWN

The collection contains:

• 25 TIFF files

• 25 distinct illustrations

• Three separate gargoyle illustrations

• No duplicate colour or greyscale variants apparent in the contact sheet

• One unique piece for every listed filename

The filename extensions vary between .tif and .TIF, but all visible files are in TIFF format.

Some illustrations may also appear in other Brad McDevitt collections where they suit more than one genre.

LICENCE

The images are supplied for personal and professional projects under the terms of the attached licence.

Read those terms before publication, particularly the requirements concerning credit, alteration and redistribution. Stock art is intended to become part of a finished publication, not to be gathered into another raw-image archive and sold beneath a hastily altered title.

More monsters, heroes, ruins and ill-advised magical experiments can be found in the wider Brad McDevitt Stock Art range.

The crypt has been disturbed.

The bottle is smoking.

The gargoyles are no longer where you left them.

The artwork, at least, is ready.