Daily Art Preview

[lutecius]

The composition is weak and convoluted, as if they were separate drawings Photoshopped together.

for me the worst offenders in this regard are the fire giants. Not to mention the fact that they dont look gigantic at all. With these poses, the male and female on each side should have switched places to balance the composition. And save for his left foot, (the artist cannot draw feet btw) the titan looks like he's in the front rather than in the back.

I think your feelings towards the Shadar-Kai will depend on whether you like goth subculture or despise it

They're not goth, they're more like matrix / ceno-lite crossbreeds to me.
I think the designers decided to pimp the shadar-kai in 4e because they needed some race for their new death-themed world to mirror the fey from the nature-themed world ...so much for eliminating symmetry.
But it’s an interesting challenge, because elves and fairies are an already well developed archetype and they're trying to match it with something new.
They could have just gone for undead, but I guess they wanted an intelligent race even at low levels.

I’m no goth but I actually wish the shadar-kai were. More precisely, I’d love something like the citizens of the Litharge Necropolis (from Neil Gaiman’s Endless) or Limbo Town (from Grant Morrisson’s Klarion) with a touch of Tim Burton’s Victorian fantasy. ie a quiet, conservative, grim civilization concerned with death and undeath.
It doesn’t seem completely incompatible with the shadar-kai, mind you, but my first reaction to this piece and the fluff I've read was more:

Its also the drow and the tieflings all over again- a rather 'cry for attention' edgy-vibe attempt in a slit the wrists sort of way.

Sorry, but the Shadar-Kai just seem so 90s to me. Gothy look, piercings, tattoos, fetish clothing. All that stuff was cool and edgy 15 years ago. Nowadays middle-class teenage girls from the suburbs have piercings. Everybody and their mother has tattoos. They talk about BDSM on broadcast TV. It's frankly all gotten a little boring.

 

[Korgoth]

Shadar-Kai might make excellent Minions if you decide to give your players a +6 Holy Avenging Minigun of Speed.

I'd play that.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

The point of Goth has never been to entertain uninitiated onlookers.

Sorry, but the Shadar-Kai just seem so 90s to me. Gothy look, piercings, tattoos, fetish clothing. All that stuff was cool and edgy 15 years ago. Nowadays middle-class teenage girls from the suburbs have piercings. Everybody and their mother has tattoos. They talk about BDSM on broadcast TV. It's frankly all gotten a little boring.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

The point of Goth has never been to entertain uninitiated onlookers.

wasn't it to be prepared for spontaneous rocky horror?... I mean you could never be to careful right?

// This line of code executes a time warp... use wisely

 

[Ipissimus]

I'm surprised at how toned down they are. I was expecting something out of Clive Barker's nightmares crossed with the 80's punk movement by way of Pale Horse.

 

[Rechan]

The art at the moment appears to be an invisible foe of some sort.

 

[DandD]

Non-viewable skeletons. Perfect minions, I tell you.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Non-viewable skeletons. Perfect minions, I tell you.

Actually invisible minions would be neat. I could just see the characters swinging their swords trying to hit one and then THUNK! the sword meets flesh and a dead minion appears before them.

 

[Rechan]

Actually invisible minions would be neat. I could just see the characters swinging their swords trying to hit one and then THUNK! the sword meets flesh and a dead minion appears before them.

Someone work on phantom fungus minions!

Actually, invisible skeletons reminds me of a homebrew creature I heard about on these forums. They were skeletons created by some shadow-dragon demi-god. They had permanent Silence and Deeper Darkness cast on them, and were his personal assassins.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

The invisible minion idea kind of reminds me of the invisible assailant from that Poe piece.