THE DUNGEON HAS CULTISTS, ASSASSINS AND A SURPRISINGLY LARGE RAT

Brad McDevitt Stock Art – Fantasy Collection 9 is the sort of fantasy assortment that looks as though somebody emptied an adventurer’s nightmares onto the floor and sorted them into TIFF files.

There are the expected monsters—a dragon, scorpion, ogre, ghoul and naga—but the collection has more going on than a row of creatures waiting patiently for their statistics. Goblins are already attacking. Assassins are demonstrating an unhealthy interest in knots. A sacrifice is under way, the tomb is haunted and somebody has raised a royal effigy that really ought to have remained horizontal.

Among all this lurk sorcerers, shamans, cultists, a sage and several dangerous women who appear entirely capable of rescuing themselves.

The download contains 25 TIFF files covering 24 distinct subjects, suitable for fantasy adventures, bestiaries, campaign settings, fiction, handouts, ’zines and other personal or professional projects.

THE FOLDER, COUNTED PROPERLY

The supplied illustrations are:

• Giant Scorpion

• Goblin Encounter

• Graveyard Ghoul

• Great Old Ones Cultist

• Gypsy – original filename

• Haunted Tomb

• Human Sacrifice

• Muscular Monster

• Mystic Ascension

• Naga

• Ogre

• Oh Those Knotty Assassins

• Panther

• Rat

• Red Dragon

• Royal Effigy

• Sage

• Sexy Elf Valkyrie

• Sexy Necromancer

• Sexy Necromancer – greyscale

• Sexy Vampiress – colour

• Sinister Armour

• Sinister Old Wizard

• Sinister Shaman

• Sorceress and Staff

That means 25 usable image files, not 25 completely different pictures. The two Necromancer files are alternate treatments of one illustration; the remaining 23 files are distinct pieces.

The names come from the supplied filenames, with catalogue codes removed and spelling tidied for British readers. They are working labels rather than commandments. Change the names, alter the creatures and ignore any implied biography that does not suit your setting.

One file uses the old title Gypsy. That is the original filename, not an obligation to use the term or assign the figure a particular ethnicity in your publication. Treat it as a flexible female character portrait and name her according to the world you are actually writing.

CREATURES THAT REQUIRE VERY LITTLE INTRODUCTION

The Giant Scorpion, Panther, Rat, Ogre, Naga and Red Dragon cover a useful spread of recognisable fantasy threats.

They are familiar enough to drop straight into an adventure without three pages of invented natural history, but broad enough to be adapted.

The scorpion might be an ordinary creature enlarged by magic, a temple guardian, subterranean predator or the unpleasant result of allowing an alchemist to dispose of waste behind the stables.

The panther can remain a dangerous animal or become a familiar, shapeshifter, supernatural hunter or guardian of a particular forest, ruin or bloodline.

The rat is considerably less impressive at first glance, which is often useful. Rats suggest cellars, sewers, ships, plague, grain stores and settlements where the local authorities have been economising on sanitation. It might be vermin, a familiar, an unusually intelligent scout or merely the visible representative of several thousand close relatives.

The ogre and naga belong comfortably in bestiaries, wilderness encounters and old-school dungeon material. Neither is saddled with elaborate setting detail. Your ogre can be a brute, mercenary, tribal champion or misunderstood innkeeper dealing with another group of armed customers who refuse to pay.

The naga might guard a temple, advise a ruler, demand tribute or inhabit the ruins everyone insists are abandoned.

Then there is the Red Dragon.

It is red. It is a dragon. After decades of increasingly baroque monster names, there remains something admirably businesslike about that.

Use it for the tyrant atop the hoard, the beast beneath the mountain, a heraldic monster made flesh or the major adversary whose existence explains why the surrounding countryside has become affordable.

THE GOBLINS HAVE ALREADY STARTED

Goblin Encounter gives you a scene rather than a specimen.

That matters. A single goblin portrait may tell the reader what the creature looks like; an encounter image shows goblins doing what they do best—appearing in inconvenient numbers while the adventurers are occupied elsewhere.

The piece could introduce:

• A roadside ambush

• A dungeon attack

• A raid upon a settlement

• A fight in cramped terrain

• A chapter on goblins or lesser humanoids

• The moment a careful expedition descends into shouting

It also saves you from illustrating every encounter with isolated figures gazing sternly at nothing. Scenes create pace inside a book. They make the world appear to continue moving when the player characters are not looking directly at it.

GRAVES, TOMBS AND ROYALTY AFTER DEATH

The Graveyard Ghoul, Haunted Tomb and Royal Effigy form a useful little cluster of sepulchral trouble.

The ghoul can live beneath a cemetery, inside a crypt, among battlefield dead or under a city whose respectable inhabitants prefer not to ask what keeps removing the bodies.

The Haunted Tomb provides a location with the problem already built into the title. Something remains there: a ghost, curse, guardian, memory or inhabitant who objects to archaeologists referring to its home in the past tense.

The Royal Effigy may be a statue, tomb carving, cult image or memorial to a ruler whose subjects were insufficiently relieved by his death. It could be harmless scenery, the key to identifying a burial site or something into which the monarch’s spirit has been deliberately fastened.

These pieces fit readily into one scenario:

A royal tomb has been disturbed. The effigy no longer resembles the dead king. Ghouls are abandoning the cemetery rather than entering it. Whatever remains inside has begun issuing orders.

That should fill an evening.

PEOPLE MAKING TERRIBLE SPIRITUAL DECISIONS

The collection’s occult side is particularly strong.

The Great Old Ones Cultist, Human Sacrifice, Mystic Ascension, Sinister Shaman, Sorceress and Staff and Sinister Old Wizard can illustrate several different kinds of magic, religion and avoidable catastrophe.

The cultist belongs in cosmic fantasy, forbidden religion or any secret society whose meetings require robes, passwords and a complete disregard for the long-term survival of the world.

Human Sacrifice is another full scene. It can be used as an interrupted ceremony, dark historical incident, cult rite or the point where investigators stop wondering whether the disappearances are connected.

The picture need not establish that the ritual works. Fraudulent, mistaken and entirely effective sacrifices all look much the same until something answers.

Mystic Ascension suggests transformation, magical elevation, divine contact or somebody becoming significantly more luminous than the surrounding population. It can illustrate a beneficial transcendence, catastrophic spell or event whose moral significance depends largely upon who arranged it.

The Sinister Shaman and Sinister Old Wizard provide two very different practitioners. Either might be villain, adviser, hermit or powerful figure whose appearance has encouraged an unfair amount of suspicion.

Or a completely fair amount. Sinister people do occur.

The Sorceress and Staff is a more broadly usable spellcaster portrait. She can become a player character, court magician, battle-sorceress, witch or recurring antagonist. The staff may be a focus, badge of office, magical weapon or something she carries because fantasy characters look naked without one.

NECROMANCERS, VAMPIRES AND OTHER GLAMOROUS PROBLEMS

The Sexy Necromancer, Sexy Vampiress and Sexy Elf Valkyrie bring colour and a more openly pulp-fantasy tone into the collection.

The Necromancer appears in two files: a standard treatment and a greyscale version. That gives publishers a practical choice between different interior styles without pretending the second file is a new character.

She might be a villain raising an army, an adventuring death-mage, an occult scholar or somebody who regards corpses as a labour force with exceptionally weak collective-bargaining rights.

The colour Vampiress suits gothic fantasy, adult horror, vampire courts and settings where the undead remain attractive enough to approach before the obvious drawbacks become apparent. She could be a predator, patron, player character or immortal ruler whose dinner invitations carry several meanings.

The Elf Valkyrie combines familiar fantasy ingredients in a form suitable for heroic, mythic or deliberately sexy material. She might be a winged warrior, chooser of the slain, elven champion or celestial figure attached to an entirely invented mythology.

There is no need to apologise for pulpy or sexualised fantasy imagery. Use it in books where it suits the tone; leave it out where it does not. Stock art is a cupboard, not a compulsory tasting menu.

ASSASSINS WITH A TERRIBLE PUN

The file titled Oh Those Knotty Assassins appears to involve an assassination by strangulation and, more importantly, commits fully to its own pun.

That alone gives it character.

It can illustrate political murder, a thieves’ guild, court intrigue, criminal methods or a historical account of people whose professional tools could be purchased from a competent rope-maker.

The image offers more narrative value than another generic assassin crouched upon a rooftop. A killing is happening. There is a victim, method and immediate question of motive.

Who ordered it?

Why use this particular method?

Was the victim silenced, punished or replaced?

Has the assassin noticed the witness standing just outside the frame?

If the illustration inspires even one encounter, it has already earned more than an ornamental dagger beside a paragraph.

SAGES, OUTSIDERS AND PEOPLE WHO KNOW TOO MUCH

The Sage offers a face for wisdom, scholarship, prophecy or the lengthy explanation players insisted upon and will now interrupt halfway through.

He can be a court adviser, hermit, historian, philosopher, retired wizard or old man who knows where the ruins are because he was there when they stopped being a city.

The portrait originally titled Gypsy can be repurposed as a traveller, fortune-teller, noblewoman, sorceress, merchant, performer or any other character that fits its appearance and your setting.

Neither image needs to be villainous or magical. Fantasy books often become overpopulated with warriors and monsters while everybody who supplies information, trades goods or remembers the past is left unpictured.

A setting needs people who know things.

It also needs people who know things but have excellent reasons not to tell the adventurers.

THE MUSCULAR MONSTER

The Muscular Monster is a broad, heavy-looking creature portrait without a tightly defined species.

That is useful.

It could be an ogre-kin, demon, mutant, troll, alchemical creation or unique brute assembled from whatever the villain had available.

Broadly named monsters are easy to fit around existing rules. Rather than rewriting the bestiary because the art has six horns and your creature description insists upon four, assign this figure to whichever large, dangerous humanoid needs a face.

It could also become a named character: bodyguard, champion, gladiator or reluctant servant whose intelligence has been underestimated by everybody who met him.

SINISTER ARMOUR

The Sinister Armour illustration can depict a warrior, dark knight, animated suit or ceremonial guard.

A suit of armour has the agreeable property of concealing whether anybody is inside.

Perhaps it contains a knight.

Perhaps it contains a corpse.

Perhaps the armour itself is alive and considers the occupant an optional component.

Use the image for cursed equipment, tomb guardians, villainous champions or a museum display that has acquired an inconvenient evening routine. It can support straight fantasy, gothic horror or a magical-item section without needing much alteration.

The players will attempt to wear it.

Write something for that eventuality.

FROM RANDOM FOLDER TO COMPLETE ADVENTURE

There is enough connective tissue here to build a substantial scenario without forcing every image into the same chapter.

A royal effigy is stolen from a haunted tomb. The graveyard ghoul claims that goblins carried it into the hills. An old sage identifies it as the seal upon a cult sanctuary beneath the mountains. The cultists intend to use a human sacrifice to complete a mystic ascension, but their sinister wizard has secretly made terms with a dragon.

The assassins are there because somebody in the royal family wants the entire matter buried.

The enormous rat is unrelated.

Probably.

That is one arrangement. The collection is just as useful divided across different products: animals into a bestiary, cult imagery into a dark-fantasy adventure, colourful characters into an adult supplement and the dragon into whichever page has enough room.

FOR PEOPLE TRYING TO FINISH BOOKS

Bespoke art is ideal when an illustration must show your exact hero, uniform, monster or location.

It is expensive when the manuscript merely needs a sage, ghoul, rat, cultist or suspicious old wizard.

Stock art covers those secondary needs. It puts faces into character sections, creatures into bestiaries and activity onto pages that would otherwise resemble legal correspondence with armour statistics.

Fantasy Collection 9 offers:

• Character portraits

• Monsters and animals

• Occult figures

• Ritual and combat scenes

• Tomb and graveyard material

• Colour and monochrome artwork

• A mixture of heroic, horrific and pulpy subjects

A small publisher can spread these images through one book or keep them available for later releases. Once licensed, an illustration may solve several layout problems over time, provided each use complies with the attached terms.

That is the dull practical virtue of stock art.

The interesting virtue is the giant scorpion.

EXACT FILE BREAKDOWN

The collection contains:

• 25 TIFF files

• 24 distinct subjects

• Sexy Necromancer: standard and greyscale versions

• 23 other subjects supplied as individual TIFF illustrations

• No PNG files shown in the contact sheet

Several files are identified as colour, greyscale or black-and-white treatments in their filenames, but only the Sexy Necromancer appears twice as the same subject within this particular collection.

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

LICENCE

The artwork is supplied for personal and professional projects under the terms of the attached licence.

Read the licence before publication and check the provisions covering attribution, alteration and redistribution. The files are intended for incorporation into finished works, not for repackaging as a rival archive of suspiciously familiar artwork.

Browse the wider Brad McDevitt Stock Art range for more heroes, monsters, scenery and evidence that somebody has been ignoring the warnings carved above the tomb.

The sacrifice is prepared.

The assassins have tied the knot.

The dragon has noticed the activity below.

Your book has twenty-five fewer excuses.