The 'Wonderland'-Inspired Faces of the RAGE OF DEMONS

Take a peek at some of the art from D&D's upcoming Rage of Demons storyline. This art is by Richard Whitters, who is the art director for D&D and used to work as a concept artist for Magic: the Gathering. WotC's Chris Perkins has indicated that one of the influences on Rage of Demons was Alice in Wonderland, and I think the influence is clear when you look at the characters below.

OUGALOP, kuo-toa cave cricket catcher extraordinaire.

YUK YUK and SPIDERBAIT, goblin adrenaline junkies.

THE SOCIETY OF BRILLIANCE, the Mensa of the Underdark.

GLABBAGOOL, awakened gelatinous cube.

RUMPADUMP and STOOL, myconid followers.

PRINCE DERENDIL, a quaggoth who thinks he's elven royalty.

TOPSY and TURVY, svirfneblin wererat siblings.

THE PUDDING KING, svirfneblin devotee (i.e., flunky) of Juiblex the Faceless Lord.

D&D's "Legion of Doom." What a wonderful bunch of malcontents.
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[13garth13]

Colour me torn....I loved DiTerlizzi's work for Planescape....MOST of the time. Whenever he was drawing faerie folk, or the upper planes, or generally whimsical weirdness, he was superb (not surprisingly, he and Brian Froud share similar sensibilities, IMHO, and there are definite similarities between their styles). But (and it is a big "But", which I like and I can't deny it) anytime he had to illustrate something of a dark/horrific/lower planar nature, his work came across as the complete ANTITHESIS of ominous and scary. In fact, it was typically so appallingly unthreatening that it took me right out of the mood of the sourcebook/adventure. His fiends were damned near comical in appearance and I never, EVER showed those illustrations while DMing a Planescape game, because at some moment that should be filled with gravitas and grim import/impending danger of a most lethal kind, my players would have rolled their eyes/laughed, and I wouldn't have blamed them in the slightest.

So, like I said....sometimes whimsical images that look like they should have been concept art for Labyrinth (1986) are great and convey a wonderful sense of strangeness....but if the fiends and dangerous predators of the Underdark all look like that that, then it's gonna seriously kill the mood, like reciting a Monty Python sketch in the middle of a horror movie.

I'll remain on the fence; hopefully this concept art reflects only some of the moods/themes of the adventure, and not the whole of it, because darn it all, any adventure in the Underdark has to live up to D1-3 and The Night Below in terms of evoking strange, otherworldly menace and bizarre subterranean monstrosities. So, my personal preference is something a little closer to Descent (2005) and not so much Froud/DiTerlizzi.

To reiterate, I'll remain cautiously optimistic (I love Underdark adventures, and I love fiends/horrific creatures, so I am really hoping Green Ronin can deliver {if it had been one of their own books, I wouldn't be hesitant at all.....I LOVED The Book of Fiends, I just don't trust that WOTC's design goals/specs will be entirely as malevolent/nasty as Green Ronin's in house works}).

Cheers,
Colin

 

[I'm A Banana]

Personally, I think that DiTerlizzi's lower planar creatures still being "whimsical" helped me to understand that in a Planescape game, these were characters - personalities, individuals, with beliefs and convictions - more than monsters. They were there to talk to, and occasionally to slay, but they weren't creatures who were just scary and evil - they had an identity beyond that.

That doesn't work for every game, but it worked really well for PS and I think it'll work well here.

 

[Krypter]

That thought had crossed my mind, but I'm not convinced - one, I think they would have name-dropped him in the initial announcement if he was even remotely attached to the project, and two, they just met for their planning session. I really doubt they settled on a finalized campaign skeleton / cast of characters after that one meeting.

Is it obvious yet that I really don't want to let go of that D&D cartoon dream, no matter how unlikely it may be?

Perkins has been dropping hints about his project since December, he met with Ward in April and the adventure is supposed to come out in September. Seems like the appropriate amount of time for consultations and design work.

(but I'm hoping for a D&D cartoon too!)

 

[13garth13]

Personally, I think that DiTerlizzi's lower planar creatures still being "whimsical" helped me to understand that in a Planescape game, these were characters - personalities, individuals, with beliefs and convictions - more than monsters. They were there to talk to, and occasionally to slay, but they weren't creatures who were just scary and evil - they had an identity beyond that.

That doesn't work for every game, but it worked really well for PS and I think it'll work well here.

I dunno....guess we'll have to agree to disagree (which is unusual, as I usually see eye-to-eye with you, KM). To use an example from film/novels, the character of Hannibal Lecter, whether portrayed by Anthony Hopkins, Mads Mikkelson, or Brian Cox, always has a depth of character (regardless of how realistic a depiction of sociopathy/psychopathy he is); there is the wit, intelligence, and "character", but also a capacity for utter evil whether subtle and Machiavellian or over-the-top, frenzied slaughter. He most certainly has all of the depth of personality of a good villain, but you always get the impression of the sheer depths of wrongness/willingness to do vile things inherent in him.

I don't get that from DiTerlizzi's fiends. At all. I get the "I'm a real character with personality" bit from his art (it sure does have that nailed down!), but to my eye he fails to convey any of the black, eternal horror of a being from the lower planes. And that has always been crucial to my games, ESPECIALLY my Planescape games. I believe it was his art booklet for the Hellbound boxed set which really, REALLY let me down completely....there are some really grotesque scenes/characters in those adventures (I think it was Squaring the Circle, which had a really demented tower in the Abyss) and the artwork just fails to get the nastiness across at all.

*Shrug*

It's cool; different strokes and all that.

Cheers,
Colin

 

[Trickster Spirit]

Perkins has been dropping hints about his project since December, he met with Ward in April and the adventure is supposed to come out in September. Seems like the appropriate amount of time for consultations and design work.

(but I'm hoping for a D&D cartoon too!)

Right, but Perkins has been working on the next seven years of D&D storylines. The question is, was the meeting with Ward in April the first he'd been brought on-board, or had they had been working on Out of the Abyss previously?

I don't think it's a matter of Ward throwing out some character concepts for quirky Underdark denizens, that seems like a misuse of his talents. He's a big name, probably bigger than any RPG celebs - even if he doesn't get listed as an author, you better believe they'd throw in a "Produced by Pendleton Ward!" mention when talking about it. It's quite a feather in their cap.

No, I think it's far more likely to be something they're still working on. Most likely the next AP.

I could be wrong, though.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Yeah, I'm cool with different strokes, I just think the dark whimsy was often intentional - PS wanted you to see demons from the abyss as people with complexity and motives, not as just nefarious villains. Hannibal Lecter had character, but he was never NOT a horrible, horrible villain. PS likes a more moral grey area, where your baby-eating demons might not be so bad if you're fighting, I dunno, Harmonium thought-police or something.

Presuming you're supposed to talk to the Pudding King and not just chiv him 'till he stops twitching, that'll be a good choice here, too.

 

[Rejuvenator]

PS wanted you to see demons from the abyss as people with complexity and motives, not as just nefarious villains. Hannibal Lecter had character, but he was never NOT a horrible, horrible villain. PS likes a more moral grey area, where your baby-eating demons might not be so bad if you're fighting, I dunno, Harmonium thought-police or something.

Except that demons/devils have been described frequently as *evil incarnate*, and Hannibal is an evil human (not even evil incarnate). To make demons whimsical is a paradox I cannot reconcile. FWIW, PS described a lot of things about the multiverse and then failed to walk the talk IMO.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Heh. To me, PS humanizing the fiends was one of the setting's biggest missteps. There are plenty of evils that can be humanized, but the fiends shouldn't be. Ever. They are literally evil incarnate.

But we're getting off-topic. I like most of what I'm seeing here; as others have said, I wouldn't want this style to become the norm, or even a common exception, but as a now-and-again thing? Absolutely.

I hate that there's a mind flayer as part of the cabal, as I prefer to think of the illithid as so freaking alien that they're no more capable of working with "normal" creatures than Cthulhu's spawn would be. (They can dominate others, be worshiped by others, but their goals and even thought-patterns don't allow for alliances.) But that ship sailed long ago in most of the D&D published settings, so I'll suck it up and deal.

 

[Parmandur]

Except that demons/devils have been described frequently as *evil incarnate*, and Hannibal is an evil human (not even evil incarnate). To make demons whimsical is a paradox I cannot reconcile. FWIW, PS described a lot of things about the multiverse and then failed to walk the talk IMO.

Bit of a sideline here, since you are really talking about 90's Planescape art; but it is worth noting that the whimsical characters in this art are *not* Outsiders. The Demons do not look very whimsical; the denizens of the Underdark, however, look twisted and alien, albeit not supernaturally so (or no more supernatural than the PC Dwarven Cleric pr Elf Ranger).

 

[I'm A Banana]

Except that demons/devils have been described frequently as *evil incarnate*, and Hannibal is an evil human (not even evil incarnate). To make demons whimsical is a paradox I cannot reconcile.

Yeah, PS was full of those. Part of its charm.