These Ogres...

1. ...haven’t eaten in two weeks (due to food scarcity, pursuit of cosmic revelation, or some other reason). They are haggard, their huge joints knobbly. (They carry nothing).
2. ...are strung out from intentionally stuffing fistfulls of ergot-tainted grain (which their bodies can handle) into their mouths. They will try stuffing fistfulls of ergot-tainted grain (which your body can’t handle) into your mouth. They are stumbling, sleep deprived, their skin mottled and striped by natural plant dyes. (One carries a rune-covered stone that a use of detect magic will reveal to be a 2nd level spell)
3. ...were recently attacked by a band of monster hunters. One of them was killed. (One has the ensorcelled short sword used to kill their friend—a demonic face on the hilt, such that the flamberged blade looks like its tongue; +1 to hit, dmg 1d6+1, save vs poison or take 1d4 damage each round for three rounds as the wound puckers and boils.)
4. …are taking turns hurling boulders at anything that moves, competing to be the most accurate shot. (Between them they carry 300 coins which they are using to make wagers. You can totally try and win it off of them.)
5. …are in the middle of eating a raw horse. There is some evidence that there was perhaps once a rider as well. (They have a man-sized set of full chainmail, an arming sword, a kite shield with a large fist indentation marring the heraldry—either a sphynx or a mantichore volant, argent on a madder field—also d100 coins among a few other knightly accoutrements.)
6. …are sleeping. Their snores shake the ground. One has a lump of mud-caked metal in the shape of a crude, slack-jawed face hanging around their neck from a leather thong. Cleaning will reveal it to be a lump of solid gold worth 500 coins, wearing it grants a +1 to Wisdom, but makes the limbs heavy, and fills the wearer with the desire to just sit and rest and watch something erode. (...One of these ogres sleeps with one eye open—1 in 3 chance every action you take that they will notice and wake up.)
   
   
7. 

Peake-ian Name Generator

...for atmospheric consistency and Gormenghastian flavor among your imaginary personages
(Roll a d200 [d20, d10] twice)

1. rattle
2. glass
3. bell
4. knotley
5. wither
6. whist
7. riddle
8. blast
9. tight
10. blather
11. pander
12. grill
13. wall
14. clock
15. slither
16. free
17. brink
18. lathe
19. fly
20. belt
21. birch
22. malt
23. jar
24. knacker
25. drain
26. lightly
27. spindle
28. thread
29. dry
30. kilter
31. melt
32. wind
33. sour
34. gap
35. silt
36. whistle
37. tine
38. flick
39. fritter
40. waist
41. dust
42. cap
43. dry
44. fig
45. mule
46. fire
47. dull
48. gripe
49. slow
50. peel
51. fiddle
52. whip
53. copper
54. milk
55. soup
56. crumb
57. frill
58. knocker
59. wide
60. winter
61. door
62. filcher
63. rye
64. monkey
65. chop
66. feather
67. sling
68. dial
69. flip
70. fodder
71. curdle
72. whelp
73. crude
74. flaut
75. lewd
76. bramble
77. manner
78. mink
79. wink
80. lustre
81. kettle
82. crimp
83. grout
84. warp
85. mild
86. tripe
87. dimple
88. trout
89. fang
90. limply
91. callow
92. snipe
93. fallow
94. bark
95. fling
96. thither
97. twig
98. butter
99. dust
100. poorly
101. saddle
102. gas
103. gill
104. nightly
105. scissor
106. trist
107. middle
108. bliss
109. bait
110. tether
111. slander
112. pill
113. stall
114. clog
115. slather
116. fray
117. trinket
118. limp
119. flit
120. stilt
121. lurch
122. salt
123. jeer
124. nickel
125. brain
126. lately
127. spun
128. bread
129. droop
130. bacter
131. silk
132. mend
133. glow
134. trap
135. tilt
136. thistle
137. brine
138. wick
139. flatter
140. mice
141. bust
142. gnat
143. bag
144. pig
145. mull
146. tire
147. full
148. grape
149. slip
150. meal
151. freight
152. linger
153. stopper
154. talc
155. sop
156. thumb
157. flint
158. knave
159. warts
160. wimper
161. dare
162. mulch
163. stye
164. wrinkle
165. chafe
166. fumble
167. slant
168. dung
169. flop
170. cod
171. hurtle
172. gulp
173. mood
174. strut
175. lap
176. thimble
177. louse
178. tinker
179. whelk
180. nacre
181. whittle
182. cramp
183. doubt
184. warble
185. mold
186. traipse
187. mantle
188. fork
189. finger
190. lilt
191. bald
192. scoop
193. bellow
194. lank
195. flange
196. yonder
197. waggle
198. braise
199. distal
200. piss

THE TWELVE DAUGHTERS OF MULL

Deep in the wild, on the border of the great fen known as THE SQUELCH, lies the TOWNSHIP OF MULL.

Mull has, or rather had, twelve daughters—or at least, twelve daughters of any political importance.
For a child was born of a certain hour of a certain moontide in a certain manner, the combination of which was deemed portentous, indicative of a god-given leader who would guide Mull township through present and future troubles and into prosperity. This child was given over to the Care of the Township—which is to say, given over to the care of PERE SPLAYWATER, then just a middle-aged, and not an agéd, man—and a piece of corundum, soft pink as dawn over The Squelch, was carved and polished into the shape of a WREN’S EGG to represent the child’s potential.

All of this would have been good fortune enough, but, by happy coincidence, the same thing occurred again, each year, for the next eleven consecutive years. The people of Mull, a sober and pragmatic folk, were content to know that they had been granted not one but twelve individual chances of a prosperous future—decent odds, by all accounts. And it was these odds upon which, as harvests grew poorer and winters meaner and fen beasts crueler, the folk of Mull grew more and more to rely.

But alas, not even the most decent odds always pay out, and the seventeen years that followed the birth of the twelfth daughter of Mull, young Knotley of the Raven Hair, were full of less than happy coincidences.

Sprightly Warble drowned in a well.
Timid Twigslip was savaged by a wild dog.
Scissor, she who Was Bony, succumbed to the pox.
Sallow Yonder choked on her porridge.
Bramble, she who Laughed so Freely, fell from climbing upon a scarp and was dashed.
Errant Tiresling was brained by a rock during an illicit children’s game of ‘Let’s throw rocks!’
Poor Frail Gill was badly frighted by a fen beast at night, which fright caused her heart to give out.
Sweet Dimple simply passed in her sleep, perhaps taken by a fey dream.
Moony Silt was gored by one of young Dulltinker’s goats. He was driven from town and his goat was drowned in the fen. She perished anyway.
Crimp, she who Was Direct in All Things, wasted away from grief over Silt, for they were very close.
Dryspindle, she of the Somber Expression, went for a walk in The Squelch one day, and never returned.

All of which leaves Belle Knotly, she of the Raven Hair and Stern Will, passing fair and of marriageable age—or at least close enough for the sober and pragmatic folk of Mull—as the last remaining hope.

Which is why it is so distressing that she too has gone missing, as had Pere Splaywater (now quite agéd), and that dashing young suitor with the blue velvet doublet, the day before.

All of this OLD GAMMY FLINGTHITHER of Mull knows, and will tell you at length.

Three Liegemen of Woe

It is known that in the ashen highlands of the 'Wold there are many folk of ill intent. What nobody knows is why.

The most common explanation is that the 'Wold is a land of exile. Where knaves are sent, knavery will follow.

But many believe that something darker is at work, for the ones who are shepherded out the great gate of the interior are the cutpurses, the unruly, and the disgraced; but the ones who come from out of the mist that sweeps down from the bases of the inverted mountains in the North, those are the damned and the murderous.

The priests of the great Magnifitrix preach that wickedness proliferates in the darkness at the edges of the world. When folk are cut off from the holy light, they become more and more cruel and corrupted, say the sermons.

However no one believes this who have seen the dark deeds done -- even in the heart of the Fulgent Desmesnes -- in the name of her holiness.

So from where come these villains? Where do they learn their strange tongues and their unearthly dirges? What inspires their fearful icons: the Argent hoof, the Spiral Wand, Our Lady Monocular?

Not even the Horse-thegns, who treat with the villains sometimes for aid in their bloody struggles of succession, can say for sure, though it is their belief that a toad-o'-the pit named Comes-For-More has coerced their allegiance, and therefore their souls, in a bid for apotheosis.

There is a tanner in Skeldkryk who claims to have come among a gathering of them in the woods one night, where they had slain a black swine and collected it's blood, and were forcing a captive fair-haired youth to drink of it.

The tanner swears that when the dregs of the fourth chalice had been forced through the youth's lips, her hair was made raven and her eyes changed to those of a beast, black-red with blood, and that she took up a blade and drew it across her bosom to the delight of the gathered fiends.

The people of Skeldkryk whisper that the tanner is at best a liar and a drunk, but also that he has been getting odder with each passing year.

One of the warrior monks of the fortress monastery of Ceolmaran claims to have crossed the inverted mountains and come even to the bitterbreach itself. From the other side (in the direction, they say, of Helmrood that was), he says he witnessed a foulness insinuating through the air. He says it was as a murk that seemed to slither along the ground and to collect in the swales and hollows of the land. He says when he breathed it his head filled with visions of the pit, and strange signs, and a hideous cacophony. It was only the holy thought of the purity of the great Magnifitrix, he says, that saved him from running mad...

The Bloat

It is of course canonical to paint certain demons in certain ways. Nothing wrong with that.

Green and brown to represent bile and decay--the corrupted flesh. Occasionally a startling, bowel-y purple, as a reminder that what's inside is a mystery, and mysteries can be rubbery.

 But there are other possible associations. This sculpt in particular, with its nicks and gouges, makes me think of a cut finger that has been under a bandage for a long time. The flesh is soft and overly pale. The wound is a bloodless red with an alien topography to the under-surface that is normally hidden beneath the skin.

This association makes me reflect that beneath the surface of things, death is a powerful and pervasive motivating force. It's inside everything, even if we don't recognize it. 

That is one of the metaphorical faces of Chaos--the animating force of death is portrayed literally, incorporated in the body of the demon and alluded to in the gong of skulls on which the march is beaten. 

I have painted this guy to reflect this idea. I call him The Bloat.

A Painting Exchange

I found that I liked this sculpt quite a bit as I painted it. There's something so implacable about the set of the sallet and the off-kilter trudge/stalk that really appeals to me.

And the grip on the sword. It's like its been wrung for decades with a timeless grudge. I hear the leather creak like the grinding of teeth. This figure looks like it stumped into the twilight miles away and years ago, and has just now reappeared in the circle of firelight, walking in the same direction, muttering the same curses.

I think my non-metallic metal painting has come along apace, though it's still somewhat more painterly than you'll find in other examples. I'm okay with that though.

This was painted for a figure exchange put on by my friends at Chicago Skirmish Wargames. A fun exercise that made me really want to go the extra mile.

Though it made it a little hard to let go when I was done, if I'm honest.

In case you're curious, this is an old grenadier sculpt. You can find your own here, along with much of the rest of the Fantasy Warriors line for a very reasonable price.

2016 in Review

Just my little joke.