Kobold Avenger
Legend
Now that I finally have the book I'm generally impressed by the art. There's a few things I noticed, first of all some of the continuing attempts at more diversity in the art including Non-Human people of Colour such as the Elven Aristocrat or the Telepathic Bard, as well as the Human Artillerist Artificer being an East Asian who's not something overtly East Asian like a Monk or Samurai. There's of course the thing about Drow that many have brought up where they're now being depicted with light grey skin.
Beyond that it's interesting that none of the Orcish seeming people are being described as Half-Orcs, as the captions just say Orc. It's an interesting one as there's always being problems distinguishing Orcs and Half-Orcs. Most of the time they aren't that distinguishable unless they went with something like in early 3e where they tried to emphasize hunchbacks and more bestial features for Orcs, while having the ones with appearances most associate with Orcs being the Half-Orcs. I suspect many who do play Half-Orcs just want to play Orcs anyways. There's being a few examples in the past of trying to show Half-Orcs that look closer to Humans, but most of the time someone depicts a Half-Orcs they're just drawing an Orc. There's a similar problem with Elves and Half-Elves, being depicted as distinct in the art.
Another thought goes into lets speculate away about upcoming campaign settings. As it's interesting that there's a picture of Azalin in the book under patrons as a Lich, and actually pointing out that he's spying on Cast Ravenloft. That's special because he's basically the first Dark Lord outside of Barovia that one thinks of when mentioning the other Dark Lords who are not Strahd. Technically Azalin is from Oerth, but I don't think there was ever anything from the Greyhawk setting ever about him, as he was introduced in the Ravenloft setting to my knowledge. Then there's the image of Rhys from Planescape, and her recruits, first of all she's so far the only Tiefling depicted in 5e art that doesn't resemble the 4e Tieflings / Dranei from World of Warcraft as I'm glad they didn't try to retcon her appearance. Interesting enough it's Guildmaster Rhys and not Factol Rhys of the Transcendent Order aka the Ciphers (the Taoist faction) in the caption, as this implies her post-Faction War status as she was the only Factol who survived (or wasn't mazed by the Lady of Pain) during the events of Faction War, thanks to her listening to the Cadence of the Planes which had her in Elysium when the Faction War broke out.
Beyond that it's interesting that none of the Orcish seeming people are being described as Half-Orcs, as the captions just say Orc. It's an interesting one as there's always being problems distinguishing Orcs and Half-Orcs. Most of the time they aren't that distinguishable unless they went with something like in early 3e where they tried to emphasize hunchbacks and more bestial features for Orcs, while having the ones with appearances most associate with Orcs being the Half-Orcs. I suspect many who do play Half-Orcs just want to play Orcs anyways. There's being a few examples in the past of trying to show Half-Orcs that look closer to Humans, but most of the time someone depicts a Half-Orcs they're just drawing an Orc. There's a similar problem with Elves and Half-Elves, being depicted as distinct in the art.
Another thought goes into lets speculate away about upcoming campaign settings. As it's interesting that there's a picture of Azalin in the book under patrons as a Lich, and actually pointing out that he's spying on Cast Ravenloft. That's special because he's basically the first Dark Lord outside of Barovia that one thinks of when mentioning the other Dark Lords who are not Strahd. Technically Azalin is from Oerth, but I don't think there was ever anything from the Greyhawk setting ever about him, as he was introduced in the Ravenloft setting to my knowledge. Then there's the image of Rhys from Planescape, and her recruits, first of all she's so far the only Tiefling depicted in 5e art that doesn't resemble the 4e Tieflings / Dranei from World of Warcraft as I'm glad they didn't try to retcon her appearance. Interesting enough it's Guildmaster Rhys and not Factol Rhys of the Transcendent Order aka the Ciphers (the Taoist faction) in the caption, as this implies her post-Faction War status as she was the only Factol who survived (or wasn't mazed by the Lady of Pain) during the events of Faction War, thanks to her listening to the Cadence of the Planes which had her in Elysium when the Faction War broke out.
