Inspired by the idea that the Wayne Reynolds illustration on the cover of Paizo's "Burnt Offerings" made their goblins the breakout star of the Pathfinder line - do you ever find that there's a single illustration that originally formed or radically changed how you viewed a classic monster or used it in a game? If so, which monster, which illustration, and why?

Here's my first pick: Frost Giant, by Cary Nord from Dark Horse's Conan comic.



Whereas before I had seen Frost Giants in RPG's as essentially large vikings, these guys, hunched and monstrous, make me think of their nonhuman traits - they are as much Frost as Giant, bursting out of the ice, and with those tusks, surely man-eaters as literally as their sister is figuratively so. In an adventure, the giants might be frozen in ice like mammoths since a prior age, waiting for something warm to devour, at which point they would struggle to shatter their way free. The little blue eyes make them seem very cruel and angry, almost like an undead creature.

This isn't really about my personal sense of a monster, but if I recall correctly, the illustration of the Rakshasa in the original AD&D Monster Manual had far reaching implications.  The text simply described them as Indian (!) shape shifters, but the picture of a tiger with bathrobe and pipe has been the true form of D&D (and other) Rakshasas ever since.  Does anyone know the history of that picture, and whether it was planned by Gygax or just thrown in by the artist?

Quote from: Esgaldil;437968This isn't really about my personal sense of a monster, but if I recall correctly, the illustration of the Rakshasa in the original AD&D Monster Manual had far reaching implications.  The text simply described them as Indian (!) shape shifters, but the picture of a tiger with bathrobe and pipe has been the true form of D&D (and other) Rakshasas ever since.  Does anyone know the history of that picture, and whether it was planned by Gygax or just thrown in by the artist?

My guess is that the tiger image is the work of the artist (Dave Trampier.)



I think that because Gygax said his impetus for including the Rakshasa as a monster (and its blessed-crossbow-bolt vulnerability) was from an episode of Kolchak the Night Stalker, which depicts it as sort of a yeti type of creature.



For whatever reason, even though I love the tiger image it didn't occur to me early on that they were all implied to look like that. I remember having three of them in an early D&D adventure I ran, where one had the head of a tiger like in the picture, but the other two were an ape and a rhinoceros. They were all in the smoking jackets, though, around a hookah.

There was an episode of Supernatural with a Rakshasa where he appeared as a Pennywise-like monster clown.

When they started to illustrate Kobolds as little lizard-men, rather than little dog-men.  I wouldn't say that really changed my perspective though, since to me they're still dog-men.

RPGPundit

Drizzt.

It seems like many pictures of drow or dark elves follow him, ever since.

Not my favourites, but diTerlizzi's art defined tieflings as an "odd" half-demonic race that exhibited some oddities, but could often pass as regular people with some difficulty. In 4e, a specific and more monstrous image seems to have taken their place.



Of course, we can also mention the evolution of the common orc from its humble beginnings as some guy's sketch of an ugly human to pig-men to 3.0's hulking, muscular brutes (that greataxe damage can hurt! One of my PCs, a veritable combat monster, was confidently striding into battle with 22 out of his maximum 36 Hps remaining, until he was filleted with a critical hit that dealt [1d12+1]*3 damage, instantly bringing him down to -14. Ouch. ).

Mine was a picture of a Githyanki my cousin (an incredibly good artist with a huge slice of laziness thrown in) did. Torn ears as he was named was our nemesis for a year......

PS this is how good my cousin is )

Well on the tieflings, they also changed backstories from being part devil or demon, to being just guys who had a pact with same. Odd that the illustration and the backstories go in opposite directions - the guys who were actually demonic look less monstrous.

More often I find the backstory influences how I perceive the image more than the other way round? For instance, dragonboobs in 3.5 didn't bother me when dragonborn were demihumans who had undergone a specific ritual, while in 4.0 when they were a specific reptilian race they did.

Also - I have to mention displacer beasts (going from 6 legs to 4 and back again) though I wouldn't say the number of legs is defining for the monster, at least for me. I assume the original creature in Van Vogt's "Black Destroyer" had 6 legs, and someone then decided 'lets just make it a panther. With tentacles.'

I don't know why but pathfinder goblins just zing. They just have this chaotic evil kender feel to them.

Drrzt is a good example; Drow were something completely different before he came along.  Of course, a lot of that is as much in the character than in the illustration of the character.

RPGPundit

the MtG Minotaur.

The MtG Minotaur:

I love Elmore's style and the art of DragonLance was very influential on my mental images of creatures from 1e AD&D.  

• Lord Soth made Death Knights fucking scary to me.
• The various dragon images brought dragons to life for me and differentiated the various dragon species.
• The Draconians brought clarity to my mental images of anthropomorphic dragon humanoids.
• Minotaurs were cool and bitching now rather than some weird, oddball creature.

Quote from: RPGPundit;438310When they started to illustrate Kobolds as little lizard-men, rather than little dog-men.  I wouldn't say that really changed my perspective though, since to me they're still dog-men.

RPGPundit

I am a big fan of the Kobold, one of D&D's signature monsters. Its identity has much more to do with D&D lore than its adopted folktale name by this point. Gygax has said that he envisioned more of a traditional shabby goblin, and that the little scaly dog-men were entirely the fancy of artist Dave Sutherland. But personally I was first introduced to Kobolds by Erol Otus's illustration in the 1981 basic set and for me it is still the definitive image:



I think it is mostly the rabid viciousness of that little guy. He has a nasty glee at skewering that snake. The dangers of kobolds as I've run them is part their  numbers, and part pure meanness. Like DCSIII's, Otus's Kobold is a chimerical beast that is mostly canine, but definitely has reptile features with his lizard like "crest," pebbly hide, and weird scaly underbelly.

However I recently played in a campaign where the DM presented kobolds as more of obsequious, deceitful goblin types, probably related to gnomes. They preferred to call themselves "the Happy People." They were a "favorite" opponent in the game and the DM commissioned this illustration by Russ Nicholson:



One of the Kobolds once told my PC,

"Our language has thirteen words for 'cute' and none for 'hatred.'"

I have always associated Dragonewts with Glorantha, especially as they were on the front cover of RuneQuest, but Lisa Free's Dragonewts really sell it for me.