HISTORY IS MOSTLY PEOPLE HAVING A TERRIBLE TIME

A bartender, a farmer, a village wisewoman, a cowboy, several hard-looking medieval sorts and one fellow known only as Weasel with Pipe.

Then come the corpses, cultists, assassinations, executions and demonic bargains.

Brad McDevitt Stock Art – Historical Collection 3 is less a parade of famous rulers and more a box full of the people, incidents and bad decisions from which actual adventures are made.

The collection contains 25 TIFF files covering 22 distinct subjects. Its interests range freely across medieval life, frontier imagery, historical fantasy and supernatural horror. It is not tied to one century or culture, which makes it useful across several books rather than splendidly suited to one chapter and nowhere else.

There are portraits for ordinary villagers and supporting characters, action scenes, ominous pieces of scenery and enough occult unpleasantness to drag an otherwise respectable historical publication firmly into the gutter.

As it should be.

WHAT IS IN THE DOWNLOAD

The supplied files are:

• Bad News and Booze

• Cowboy with Colts

• Cowboy with Colts – greyscale

• Unearthed Cadaver

• Bartender

• Kindly Old Farmer

• Village Idiot

• Village Wisewoman

• Weasel with Pipe

• Medieval Tough Guy 1

• Medieval Headshot Woman

• Tough Guy with Beard

• Skulls

• Skulls – greyscale

• Candlelit Message

• African Man

• Archer – black and white

• Archer – colour

• Backstab Attack

• Banshee

• Barbarian Thug

• Blood Cult Leader

• Counsel

• Demonic Pact

• Execution Hill

The contents list follows the supplied filenames, with production codes and untidy spacing removed. “Village Idiot” is the original, distinctly old-fashioned file title rather than a compulsory identity for the character.

There are 25 usable files, rather than 25 wholly different illustrations. The Cowboy, Archer and Skulls each account for one alternate version.

A VILLAGE FULL OF PEOPLE

The strongest part of this collection may be its group of ordinary faces.

The Bartender, Kindly Old Farmer, Village Wisewoman, Medieval Headshot Woman, Tough Guy with Beard, Medieval Tough Guy and the portrait filed as Village Idiot can populate a village, roadside inn, market town, manor or travelling party without making every inhabitant look like an adventurer waiting for a character sheet.

These are the people who make a setting feel inhabited.

The farmer knows which fields the animals avoid. The bartender hears everything and repeats only what profits him. The wisewoman remembers the old burial ground. The bearded tough has been paid not to remember anybody passing through after nightfall.

Or none of that. They may simply be a farmer, bartender, healer and labourer going about their lives until player characters arrive and turn a local inconvenience into a three-session bloodbath.

Portrait stock art earns its place because supporting characters rarely justify individual commissions. They still benefit from faces. A picture gives the reader something to remember and gives the Games Master a chance of keeping the village cast distinct after everybody acquires a name, motive and suspicious cousin.

The African Man is another broadly usable portrait. The filename identifies no specific date, culture or occupation, so those details remain for the writer to supply. He could be a traveller, soldier, merchant, scholar, sailor, resident or player character according to the setting.

Historical artwork should open possibilities, not pretend a small contact-sheet portrait has settled an entire biography.

COWBOYS, ARCHERS AND PEOPLE STANDING FAR TOO CLOSE TO KNIVES

The action material covers several very different kinds of historical or historically flavoured violence.

Cowboy with Colts comes in colour and greyscale. It belongs naturally in westerns, weird west, frontier fantasy and pulp adventure, though nothing prevents the figure becoming an outlaw, lawman, hired gun or travelling performer with a flamboyant approach to personal security.

The Archer is also supplied twice, in colour and black-and-white. Archers fit almost anywhere before firearms became boringly efficient: battlefields, hunting parties, castle walls, ambushes, tournaments and woodland bands redistributing wealth with varying degrees of political justification.

A separate Barbarian Thug gives you a heavier, rougher character for ancient, medieval or fantasy material. The filename does not dictate culture or allegiance. He may be a raider, guard, mercenary, pit-fighter or merely somebody whose tailor has failed to soften the overall impression.

Then there is Backstab Attack, which dispenses with heroic combat in favour of the practical historical method: wait until the other person is occupied and stick something into them from behind.

It can illustrate:

• An assassination

• A betrayal

• Court intrigue

• Murder during a riot or battle

• The exact moment an alliance expires

• A character learning that “watch my back” was interpreted figuratively

Action scenes are particularly valuable in stock collections. Portraits tell us who is present; a scene tells us that the plot has already started.

BAD NEWS, BOOZE AND CANDLELIGHT

A few pieces are quieter and more atmospheric.

Bad News and Booze suggests aftermath rather than action: unwelcome tidings, a grim evening in an inn, military news, a death notice or somebody attempting to digest catastrophe with liquid assistance.

The title is evocative without trapping the image inside one story. It could open a scenario, sit beside a rumour table or mark the point where the characters discover that events elsewhere have overtaken their plans.

Candlelit Message is equally useful as connective tissue. Letters, proclamations, secret instructions, death warrants, coded warnings and intercepted correspondence are the machinery of historical intrigue. Most of history occurred before anybody could send “running late, assassin in courtyard” to the group chat.

A message read by candlelight already carries privacy, urgency and uncertainty. Who wrote it? Is it genuine? Why was it delivered after dark?

The file titled Counsel offers another scene suited to courts, political discussion, private advice or the exercise of influence behind authority. It could accompany a ruler and adviser, family consultation, conspiracy or moment of persuasion.

These pieces help a publication breathe. Not every page needs a monster roaring or a swordsman lunging towards the reader. Sometimes the plot turns because somebody reads a letter and makes the wrong decision.

UNEARTHED, EXECUTED AND PILED NEATLY

Historical horror is well served here.

The Unearthed Cadaver can begin an investigation before a word of introduction has been written. A body has been dug up, exposed or discovered. Its age, identity and condition are entirely yours to determine.

Perhaps it belongs to an old burial.

Perhaps it was placed there last week.

Perhaps the corpse is ancient but the clothing is new.

The Skulls illustration comes in standard and greyscale versions. It can sit beside material on death, plague, warfare, catacombs, execution, necromancy or the sort of historical site that tourism boards describe as “atmospheric”.

Execution Hill appears to be a full scene rather than another isolated portrait. The filename makes it suitable for gallows, public punishment, dark landmarks, local history and places where the dead have had a long time to become resentful.

An execution site may be background colour. It may also be the centre of a haunting, the meeting place of a cult or the one patch of land nobody in the village will cross after dusk.

When history and horror overlap, very little invention is required. The past has already supplied disease, famine, war, torture, superstition and countless unidentified bodies. The supernatural merely has to turn up and behave as though it owns the place.

CULTS, PACTS AND THE DEAD WHO OBJECT

The collection’s darker material includes a Blood Cult Leader, Demonic Pact and Banshee.

The Blood Cult Leader might preside over a secret religion, forbidden rite, criminal fraternity or noble household whose family traditions have become unusually demanding. Use the figure as an antagonist, patron, priest or the respectable public face of something conducted below stairs.

Demonic Pact gives you a complete infernal transaction. It could illustrate summoning, temptation, sorcery, a bargain for power or the regrettable consequences of somebody believing they had read the smaller clauses carefully.

Pacts are useful because they create obligations rather than simple attacks. A demon may want payment, service, influence or fulfilment of a promise made by somebody long dead. Killing the summoner need not cancel the agreement. Indeed, contracts often become more difficult when one party is deceased and the other employs supernatural legal counsel.

The Banshee brings a folkloric spirit into the collection. She can be an omen, ghost, mourner, ancestral guardian or active threat. The cry may announce death, cause it or simply reveal that death has already occurred somewhere out of sight.

These three illustrations can underpin separate encounters, but they also fit together rather too well: a cult leader makes a pact, an execution follows and the banshee begins appearing to everybody whose name is written in the agreement.

PEOPLE RATHER THAN PERIOD LABELS

This collection is historically themed, but it is not a tightly researched visual guide to one date and place.

That is worth stating plainly.

A cowboy stands beside medieval villagers. An archer shares the folder with occult scenes and historical horror. The result is a flexible publisher’s collection, not a museum catalogue or costume reference.

That breadth suits:

• Historical role-playing games

• Medieval fantasy

• Weird west

• Gothic and folk horror

• Alternate history

• Pulp adventure

• Dark fantasy

• Occult investigation

• Historical fiction and gaming ’zines

A portrait can often cross centuries with careful use. Clothing and equipment matter, but a close character image may fit several settings where a full architectural scene would not.

The safest approach is also the most useful one: take the filenames as broad labels, inspect the image and assign the specific culture, profession and history required by your own project.

A PRACTICAL PUBLISHING TOOL

Commissioning a unique illustration for every bartender, villager, corpse, archer and cultist would be lovely.

It would also cost rather more than most modest supplements are likely to earn.

Stock art handles the middle ground. Save the bespoke budget for the cover, signature monsters and setting-specific scenes. Use ready-made work for supporting characters, incidents, chapter furniture and the other illustrations that make a book feel complete without needing to be unique.

Historical Collection 3 offers:

• A ready-made village cast

• Warriors and action scenes

• Occult and supernatural material

• Grisly discoveries

• Atmospheric narrative pieces

• Colour and monochrome alternatives for selected subjects

It can support a single broad book or be divided between several smaller releases. The cowboy does not have to meet the banshee. The bartender does not have to serve the Blood Cult Leader.

They could, obviously.

There is no need to waste a perfectly good bad idea.

FILES AND VARIANTS

The download contains:

• 25 TIFF files

• 22 distinct subjects

• Cowboy with Colts: colour and greyscale

• Archer: colour and black-and-white

• Skulls: standard and greyscale

• 19 further subjects supplied as individual TIFF illustrations

Some pieces may also appear in other Brad McDevitt collections where they suit several genres.

LICENCE

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

Read those terms before publication, particularly the provisions covering credit, alteration and redistribution. Buying licensed artwork allows you to incorporate it into your work; it does not ordinarily turn the original files into trade goods for your own stock-art empire.

Further characters, creatures and historical unpleasantness can be found in the wider Brad McDevitt Stock Art collection.

A corpse has been uncovered.

The message arrived after midnight.

Somebody has agreed to something infernal.

The book, however, is looking much better.