D is for Djinn!

3 members of that ancient race who walk beside men in unseen, other realms...  Occasionally they pass through doors between worlds, dabbling briefly in the affairs of mortals before returning to the plain of air. 

 

                                  The classic Trampier illustration from the original Monster Manual.

                                        The first is a Ral Partha miniature I think from the 90s....

I painted him as close as I can get to the picture of Othere, the Djinn of Distinction from the Lost Worlds Combat Book Series.

A Grenadier Djinn from their official D&D line from the very late 70s/ early 80s.

Another Ral Partha Djinn...I had the idea that I could use these fellows in a number of different settings:  D&D, Pulp, (Little Cairo), and they might even fit into my ancient Egyptians vs Hittite.

We'll see where they first show up on the Big Board!

B is For Bugbear!

Grr! A pack of Bugbears make ready to guard their treasure against marauding adventurers...

As much as I like some of the D&D models that have come out over the last decade or so, I prefer, for the most part, to stick to the models I collected in my youth.  Now that I'm old, I have the funds to build that collection I could only wistfully dream of owning when I was a boy.  Besides, it is my considered opinion that like so many other things; Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Marvel and DC comics, etc... D&D has come to be unbearably stupid under its latter day proprieters.  Stupid, polluted, prostituted and abused.  My wife said she had a conversation with someone at her work in which the subject of D&D came up and she said  "Oh, my husband does that stuff!  He was playing D&D when he was a little kid in the 80s, when the game was brand new!"  "Wow!  Those must have been the days!"  her co-worker mused.  Yeah.  They really were.  Things were wide open and free.  The books seemed very adult, esoteric and weird, and were charged with a little of that delightfully grown-up sleazyness that characterized the old pulps.  Nothing was on your phone.  Everything was in a book or in your head.  The emphasis was on imagination and fun.  When I go to a game store and glance through the newest additions of the rules, it all seems rather empty to me.  Debased, sanitized and dull.  I really wonder who they make it for now.  Hasbro probably doesn't even know.  They probably don't know or care.  Corporate thinking kills creativity and discourages fun.  But enough grumbling about things I can't change.  On the rare occasions that I do still play D&D, I use me olde books from the 70s and 80s.  And I frequently take them down and browse through them for enjoyment.  TSR made their books so well back then that despite 40+ years of hard handling I still have all my old hardback books from that era, all completely intact.  They have never fallen apart.  And the game was better then too.  Why do anything else?  As old as I am, and with all the time that's past, a whisp of that old magic still clings to a lot of these classic bugbears.

                             Classic Dave Sutherland illustration from the original Monster Manual.

                                   
Andrew Chernak sculpted these menacing looking lads for the original AD&D miniatures line that Grenadier produced in the late 70s and early 80s.  He did a terriffic job in capturing the characteristics of the Bugbears in the MM's illustrations...

                                       

                                                 Whang!  Tough customers, them Bugbears...
                                        
                                                     Tough.  Cruel.  Cunning. Ruthless.

                                        

                           Egads!  The thieves have been discovered!  Now they must fight for their lives!

G is for Goblin!

                                        

A swarm of savage Goblin warriors emerge from the nighted dungeon depths to assault a band of brave adventurers!

Rapacious and cruel, the evil little runts rush forward, hoping to bring the adventurers down in one furious charge!

The very first wargaming/role playing miniatures I ever owned were bought for me by my Chum Jay for my birthday when I was in the fourth grade.  He got me the Grenadier goblins blister from  the their AD&D figure line sculpted by Andrew Chernak.  The fellow on the left with the sword is the last remaining survivor of that pack, I beleive.  The others I have slowly collected down through the years, and at last they have become painted denizens of my Dwarven Forge dungeon.

An example of the yellow carded Chernak blisters which Jay and I used to eye greedily at the little hobby shop we frequented.

Dave Trampier's wonderful drawing from the original Monster MAnual.

The horde attacks!  The pack had 5 different scupts:  A halberdier, a swordsman, and mace, warhammer and flail armed figures.

                  The great, clumsy flail looks like a fore runner of the Warhammer Goblin Fanatic!

                                      Goblins rush the Dwarf Thief and the Fighter/Magic User!

                                                   A fierce skirmish in the darkened halls!

Seems like that thing would be awkward to use---especially in a close quarters dungeon type environment.  I like these guys, though.

Some simple conversions to some of the warhammer armed Goblins give a little more variety to the poses.

                                                                The halberdiers attack!

Beware!  Goblinses down there!

X is for Xorn

                                                    Weird, Mis-shapen Tunnelers of Stone...

                                                        Eaters of metals in the lonely dark...

                                                   Three eyes above, and three arms below....

                                              'neath champing jaws which grind gold and bone!

                                                                                Xorn!!

One of Gary Gygax's weirder and most memorable creations,  The Xorn churns his way through the earth, searching for the precious metals which make up his diet.  These sculpts are Andrew Chernak's and date to the late 70s/early 80s, from Grenadier's original AD&D line.  Fine looking pieces they are, too!

A group of adventurers encounter a pair of Xorn keen to help themselves to the a feast of hard-won gold and silver!

A spellcaster blasts one of the Xorns with sizzling sorcery!  Will it be enough to stop this child of stone?

Nay!  The proud Xorn exults in victory, his bellows of triumph re-echo through the vast galleries of stone which are his home!

                                                       Sons of Stone wade into battle!

C is for Cockatrice!

An entirely inappropriate admixture of fowl, reptile and other, perhaps entirely unearthly elements, the Cockatrice frequents dismal bogs, moors and stony hill-crests, flapping about noisily and laying low prey items with their lethal gaze.

Bu-Caw!

 

The one I call the hen, here, came out pretty good, I think.

Though not as mangy and hideous as, say, an urban Pigeon, the Cockatrice is still an altogether unappealing sight.  But that's one of the things we like about it.

The Rooster.  Both hen and rooster are Grenadier figures, one comes out of the Monster Manuscript series...They'll be going in to the mail soon, as we are getting ready to start packing things up around here, thank God.  They'll both be lurking in the passages of my dungeon, waiting for some bunch of dumb adventurers to come around the corner.

M is for Mummy!

                                     
Mummies!  Some deep-dwelling dungeon denizens to strike terror into the hearts of some of my D&D adventures.

Groping along the inky passages of his antediluvian tomb for all eternity, this snuffling, shuffling fellow should put the fear of the Gods into the first set of dungeon raiders to cross his path...

An old Ral Partha figure, I think...He's very simple but I like him.

This character looks terrifying, but I don't know how dangerous he is, what with his arms all strait-jacketed.  Might give somebody a heart attack, though.

He's a Grenadier figure and I really like his menacing expression and the detail on his wrappings.  Not just a bag of rags...some thought clearly went into the cross-over method of wrapping him up.  He's a bit bigger than my Ral Partha adventurers and the other mummies here, a smidge closer to 28mm than 25mm, but who knows?  Maybe he's a relic of some lost race from days when men were taller.  He'll fit in well with my Call of Cthulhu guys at any rate.

Last but not least, some Queen of the lightless depths, reminiscent of Robert Howard's unforgettable Akivasha...Who was she?  What are her powers?

Does she at whiles disguise her withered limbs in illusions of nubile flesh with which to entice unwary men into everlasting imprisonment within her nighted sepulcher?  I'll bet she does... 

The classic Monster Manual illustration.  Every time I see a Trampier illustration I wish he had done more stuff.  It would be nice to see a printed collection of his D&D work...

Tomb raiders beware!

H.P. Lovecraft: The Outsider