LICHES, NAGAS, RIOTS AND A CROW WITH SOMEBODY ELSE'S EYEBALL

There are fantasy illustrations which require paragraphs of explanation.

Then there is a crow carrying an eyeball.

Brad McDevitt Stock Art – Fantasy Collection 4 contains 25 image files representing 16 distinct pieces of artwork, ranging from wizards and monsters to crowd scenes, magical treasure and several objects which strongly suggest that somebody has been reading the wrong books.

It has a particularly pulpy strain running through it: a weretiger, naga, jungle adventurer, sinister mystic, old sorcerers and a distinctly unpleasant-looking lich. There is enough conventional fantasy material to slot into an adventure or bestiary, but enough oddity to stop the pages looking like every other book full of swordsmen standing at three-quarter profile.

Several illustrations come in alternate treatments or formats, giving you 19 TIFF files and 6 PNGs altogether.

THE CONTENTS

The collection contains:

• Weretiger – PNG

• Crow and Eyeball – colour TIFF

• Crow and Eyeball – black-and-white TIFF

• Crow and Eyeball – greyscale TIFF

• Lich – colour TIFF

• Lich – greyscale TIFF

• Riot in Rome – TIFF

• Cleric’s Power – TIFF

• Frightened Peasant – TIFF

• Royalty and Peasantry – TIFF

• Tattooed Mystic – TIFF

• Wizard’s Knock Spell – TIFF

• Punk Naga – PNG

• Wizardly Illusion – TIFF

• Jungle Girl – colour PNG

• Jungle Girl – colour TIFF

• Jungle Girl – greyscale PNG

• Jungle Girl – greyscale TIFF

• Fu Manchu – colour TIFF

• Fu Manchu – greyscale TIFF

• Summoned Demon – TIFF

• Fantasy Treasure Pile – PNG

• Fantasy Treasure Pile – TIFF

• Human-Skin Grimoire – PNG

• Human-Skin Grimoire – TIFF

That is 25 files covering 16 different subjects.

The titles above are cleaned versions of the supplied filenames rather than mandatory terminology for your setting. Some of them are deliberately old-school pulp labels. In particular, Fu Manchu is an obvious period stereotype as a filename; there is no need to reproduce that name or cultural baggage in the finished work. Likewise, Jungle Girl can become whatever adventurer, warrior, traveller or fantasy character your own project requires.

The artwork is the useful part.

A CROW HAS FOUND SOMETHING

The Crow and Eyeball piece comes in three versions: colour, black-and-white and greyscale.

There is a crow.

It has an eyeball.

We need not complicate matters.

As a spot illustration it is useful beside necromancy, omens, battlefield aftermaths, familiars, witchcraft, prophecy or any section where the general mood has moved beyond merely ominous.

The eye need not even be human. It could belong to a giant, monster, murdered king or the wizard who was extremely confident that his familiar would never betray him.

The three treatments also make this one easy to reuse in differently designed books. A colour version can carry a prominent digital page; monochrome variants sit naturally in black-and-white interiors.

And because it is a crow carrying an eyeball, it can sit in a corner of almost any grim fantasy page and quietly improve it.

THE LICH

The Lich is likewise supplied in colour and greyscale.

A lich scarcely requires an introduction. Dead wizard. Refused retirement. Usually surrounded by an elaborate explanation for why simply smashing the body does not solve the problem.

This particular piece can cover the familiar possibilities: ancient necromancer, undead king, sorcerous adviser who has remained in office well beyond the usual pension age, guardian of a forbidden archive or the previous owner of the human-skin book elsewhere in the collection.

A good lich is less interesting as a wandering monster than as somebody with plans.

It has had centuries.

It should have thought of something.

The greyscale treatment is handy for conventional RPG interiors; the colour version can take a more prominent place in PDFs, chapter openers or digital releases.

MAGIC ACTUALLY HAPPENING

Three illustrations catch magic in use rather than merely giving you people dressed appropriately for it: Cleric’s Power, Wizard’s Knock Spell and Wizardly Illusion.

That makes them useful.

A cleric demonstrating supernatural power can accompany divine magic, miracles, priestly classes, holy intervention or an encounter where faith has suddenly stopped being theoretical.

The Knock Spell piece suggests a magician dealing with an obstacle through sorcery. That can illustrate spell descriptions directly, but it also works more broadly for magical entry, unlocking, ward-breaking or the ancient wizardly tradition of refusing to engage with doors on their own terms.

Wizardly Illusion can sit beside deception magic, glamour, phantasms or encounters in which looking at the picture is considerably easier than determining what is actually present.

These sorts of illustrations earn page space because they show fantasy doing something.

The magic has an effect.

The characters react to it.

The reader gets more than a portrait and a staff.

THE TATTOOED MYSTIC

The Tattooed Mystic is a striking character piece suitable for a shaman, sorcerer, seer, occult warrior or practitioner whose magic is written directly onto the body.

Those markings could be spells, protective wards, initiatory scars, religious symbols or simply decoration.

There is no need to decide from the filename alone.

In a setting where tattoos carry magical significance, the image can support a whole tradition. Perhaps every symbol binds a spirit. Perhaps they record deeds. Perhaps they slowly appear as the character learns forbidden knowledge.

Or perhaps he just likes tattoos and everyone else has spent far too much time attempting to decode them.

Fantasy scholars need hobbies.

THE PUNK NAGA

Punk Naga is exactly the sort of image that makes stock-art folders worth rummaging through.

The naga is already a flexible fantasy creature: serpent-person, guardian, monster, mystic or member of a non-human civilisation.

Give one a punk edge and suddenly it belongs equally well in traditional fantasy, gonzo fantasy, urban fantasy or any setting which has decided that subcultures did not need to wait for electricity.

She could be a rebel from a serpent kingdom, outlaw, mercenary, adventurer or simply somebody whose society contains precisely the same generational disagreements as everybody else's.

It is unusual enough to spark an NPC or faction rather than merely illustrate one already written.

THE WERETIGER

The Weretiger comes as a PNG and gives the collection another shapechanger to go with its stranger humanoids.

A weretiger can occupy a rather different niche from the ubiquitous werewolf. Jungle settlements, tropical cities, temple complexes and wilderness campaigns all suit it naturally, but the creature need not be bound to one geography.

It might be hereditary, cursed, magical or part of a species able to move between human and predatory forms.

The most useful thing about lycanthropes—or equivalent shapechangers—is that they are characters as well as monsters.

The beast has relationships.

A home.

Perhaps a profession.

Somebody knows them.

Somebody may love them.

And then somebody discovers what has been eating the livestock.

Things become complicated.

Good.

RIOT IN ROME

The file called Riot in Rome shows a large crowd scene and can be used wherever you need civil disorder, public violence or mass unrest.

Keep Rome if that fits.

Discard Rome if it does not.

A fantasy city can riot perfectly well without consulting a historical atlas.

The picture could illustrate a food riot, revolt, religious clash, uprising, mob attack or the beginning of the unfortunate afternoon when the city's rulers discover exactly how many citizens can fit into the palace square.

Crowd scenes are valuable because stock-art collections understandably lean towards individuals. Yet cities are full of people, and political events become rather more persuasive when the artwork contains more than one angry man.

It also pairs nicely with Royalty and Peasantry.

One shows hierarchy.

The other shows what occasionally happens to hierarchy.

ROYALTY AND PEASANTRY

Royalty and Peasantry appears to contrast people of different social rank, making it useful for social structure, feudalism, court material and adventures where class is more than an equipment table.

A ruler may be loved, feared or simply unavoidable.

A peasant may be loyal, exploited, rebellious or trying to get through another harvest without becoming involved in the plot.

The picture does not need to dictate which.

It can illustrate taxes, petitions, audiences, royal progress, social inequality or the straightforward fact that most people in a fantasy kingdom are not knights.

If the same book also contains Riot in Rome, there is plenty of scope to let the reader infer how well matters are going.

THE FRIGHTENED PEASANT

Frightened Peasant may be one of the most reusable pieces in the pack.

Fantasy villages experience a remarkably high number of monsters per head of population.

Something has been seen in the woods.

Something came down from the hills.

Something took the livestock.

Something knocked on the window.

The mayor sent three men to investigate and one of them came back unwilling to discuss what happened to the other two.

Enter adventurers.

A frightened local can be a witness, quest-giver, survivor, refugee or simply useful visual shorthand for the situation is worse than advertised.

Not every NPC needs to look dangerous.

Sometimes the person who is terrified tells you far more about the monster than the monster portrait itself.

THE SUMMONED DEMON

Summoned Demon gives you the other half of an occult incident.

Someone has done the summoning.

Something has answered.

From here, competence becomes the important issue.

Perhaps the demon is bound perfectly well and is answering questions.

Perhaps it is negotiating.

Perhaps the circle has a gap.

Perhaps the summoner has forgotten that beings older than civilisation tend to read contractual language quite closely.

The image can accompany summoning rules, infernal magic, an adventure scene or a monster entry.

It also works beautifully with the Human-Skin Grimoire.

Book contains ritual.

Wizard tries ritual.

Demon arrives.

Book neglected to mention step twelve.

There are reasons old magical texts acquire marginal annotations such as DON'T.

THE HUMAN-SKIN GRIMOIRE

The Human-Skin Grimoire is supplied in both PNG and TIFF formats.

The name already tells you what sort of magical tradition we are dealing with.

It can be a necromantic spellbook, cursed scripture, cult manual, infernal contract or unique artefact whose construction method raises questions nobody particularly wants answered.

The book might contain genuine power.

It might be an elaborate fraud.

It might be perfectly mundane apart from the binding, which frankly is quite enough.

As an illustration it is useful beside magical treasure, occult rules, forbidden texts or the sort of handout where the players immediately ask whether their characters recognise the material.

You then get to decide how much you enjoy watching faces change.

TREASURE, FINALLY

The Fantasy Treasure Pile comes in both PNG and TIFF.

Gold, jewels and assorted valuables are among the oldest motives in fantasy gaming and remain admirably resistant to narrative sophistication.

There is treasure.

People want it.

Something probably guards it.

The illustration can accompany treasure tables, wealth rules, dungeon hoards or a chapter devoted to rewards.

It can also simply appear at the end of an adventure, which is where treasure belongs if everyone has behaved themselves.

The transparent-format PNG may be particularly handy where you want the pile to sit directly against your own page design, while the TIFF provides another production option.

Do check the actual files and your software requirements before settling on layout; the collection gives you both.

THE JUNGLE GIRL: FOUR FILES, ONE SUBJECT

The Jungle Girl is the most extensively supplied illustration in the set.

There are four files:

colour PNG, colour TIFF, greyscale PNG and greyscale TIFF.

That is one piece of artwork with four production options, not four different characters.

The image itself has a broad pulp-fantasy character. It could represent an adventurer, warrior, wilderness guide, barbarian heroine, lost-world explorer or player character.

The old Jungle Girl filename is best treated as exactly that: a pulp label from the source file.

Use a name and cultural context appropriate to your actual setting.

The useful part of having four versions is flexibility. Colour book? Covered. Greyscale interior? Covered. Want the PNG treatment rather than TIFF? Also covered.

No need to perform heroic conversions at two in the morning because layout is due tomorrow.

FU MANCHU: AN OLD PULP LABEL

Two files are titled Fu Manchu, one colour and one greyscale.

That is the supplied filename and an unmistakably dated pulp stereotype rather than a neutral cultural description.

The illustration can be used perfectly well without carrying that term into your publication.

Depending on what the figure actually becomes in your project, he could be a sorcerer, nobleman, criminal mastermind, adviser, merchant, scholar or villain from an entirely invented fantasy culture.

If you are connecting him to a specific real-world culture, do the research and write that culture properly rather than letting a century-old stereotype fill in the blanks.

There is a good image in the folder.

You are not obliged to inherit all the baggage attached to its filename.

WHAT THE COLLECTION IS GOOD AT

Fantasy Collection 4 is particularly handy for publishers who need variety rather than twenty-five individual portraits.

You get characters, monsters, magic being performed, objects, treasure and scenes involving whole groups of people.

That allows the art to move around a book.

The Lich and Weretiger can go into a bestiary. The Cleric and wizards fit rules or character material. Riot in Rome and Royalty and Peasantry can illustrate the setting. The Treasure Pile and Grimoire go naturally into rewards and magic. The frightened peasant gets to explain why everybody else is involved.

It can all belong to one campaign if you want it to.

A ruler hires the adventurers after unrest breaks out in the capital. A frightened peasant claims the riots began after a mystic brought an old grimoire into the city. The book belongs to a lich. The lich wants it back. The local wizard has already attempted one of the rituals.

The demon is currently considering its options.

Or use each image in a completely different publication.

Both approaches are valid.

THE FILE BREAKDOWN

There are 25 image files representing 16 distinct illustrations.

The collection contains 19 TIFF files and 6 PNG files.

The multi-file subjects are Crow and Eyeball, with colour, black-and-white and greyscale TIFF treatments; Lich, with colour and greyscale TIFFs; Jungle Girl, with colour and greyscale versions in both PNG and TIFF; Fu Manchu, with colour and greyscale TIFFs; Fantasy Treasure Pile, supplied as PNG and TIFF; and Human-Skin Grimoire, also supplied as PNG and TIFF.

The other ten subjects are supplied once each.

Some individual illustrations may also occur in other Brad McDevitt collections where they cross naturally between genres.

LICENCE

The artwork may be used in personal and professional projects, subject to the terms of the licence supplied with the collection.

Read the licence before publication and check its requirements concerning credit, modification and redistribution.

Use the images inside your finished work. Do not simply repackage the raw artwork as another stock-art bundle and expect a false moustache on the folder icon to fool anybody.

More Brad McDevitt artwork can be found in the wider Brad McDevitt Stock Art range.

Sixteen subjects. Twenty-five production-ready files. One deeply unfortunate crow.

That ought to keep a few pages occupied.