D&D General One Piece of Art V (Places)- What Piece of D&D Art Inspired You to Love a Place

[Snarf Zagyg]

Welcome to part FIVE in the art appreciation series- One Piece of Art! Prior columns can be found here:
Part I (Classes)
Part II (Monsters)
Part III (Magic Items)
Part IV (Races)

Today's topic ... LANDSCAPES! I was going to do still lifes, but NO FRUIT FOR YOU!

What D&D Art inspired you to love a place?

Now, for purposes of this thread, a necessary disclaimer. Please construe "place" to art that, while it may have figures, action, or whatever is primarily about the PLACE. This is meant to be welcoming, so please feel free to construe this geneously.

Now, with that out of the way ... please note the following rules for the thread-

1. ONE piece of art. You shall count to one. If you do two, you've gone two ... um, too far. Three is just way out. And zero means you forgot to comment.

2. It has to have inspired you to "love" a particular place. Now, love in in this context is totally up to you. Maybe the art inspired you to love D&D in general. Maybe it inspired you to want to play in a particular setting. Maybe that piece of art always shaped how you view that place --- it's the UR-ARCTIC or UR-DESERT. Maybe you travel to Moab every year because you want to capture that fantasy desert feeling. Whatever, man, I'm not going to define your love! Feel free to explain why this particular piece of art (depicting a PLACE) is so meaningful to you.

3. Explain the art source (incl. artist if known), the magic item, and why you chose it. Please!

4. NO MAPS. Is this a hint for a future post? HA HA! Maybe.

As I started the thread, I will go first. As always, I like to go a little idiosyncratic....

Artist: Jeff Dee
Source: Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits
Place: Maldev

For those of you who don't know, I have a ... thing ... about the early "Gygaxian" multiverse in D&D.

Digressions, Discussions, and Discursions: Snarf's Splendiferous Scrolls

It's been a year, so I'm collecting and sorting my past essays on this thread. Mostly because I realize I was about to start writing something I wrote about last year! There are roughly organized by topic, but not by date. HERE IS THE SECOND PART!!!! (Mostly RPG History, Pop Culture, and Jon...

www.enworld.org

And this image is to blame. In Q1 you had the option to go to all of these amazing worlds ... to visit the evil elves of Caer Sidi. Perchance to dream in the Nightmare World of Vald Tolenkov.

...and maybe, just maybe, to defend Maldev, the last kingdom of the mountain dwarves, from the onslaught of Lolth's forces. Something about this alien world pictured, with peaks that are just ... too ... pointed ... made the baleful exhaustion of the defenders of the last kingdom of the dwarves .... that much more real.

One sentence. One picture. A lifetime of adventure.

 

[Maxperson]

I love Dark Sun, but I probably wouldn't have looked inside of the setting if this hadn't been on the cover.

Artist: Gerald Brom
Source: Dark Sun Campaign Setting
Place: Athas

I almost went with the old piece of 1e art, "A Paladin in Hell."

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I love Dark Sun, but I probably wouldn't have looked inside of the setting if this hadn't been on the cover.

I think that the cover, and the ads in general, did a LOT to sell people on Dark Sun!

 

[FitzTheRuke]

That new Rock of Bral map has me itching to play Spelljammer, when I never have before.

 

[CleverNickName]

This piece, by Tyler Jacobson for Wizards of the Coast's Magic: the Gathering: Rivals of Ixalan block, in 2018....which they later incorporated into their Plane Shift: Ixalan setting for D&D (free download, btw). I loved the artwork so much that it inspired me to create an entire new archipelago in my homebrew D&D campaign setting just to include it.

And not just that piece, either. There is just SO MUCH AWESOME ART in that whole block of Magic cards, holy cow. It was a nearly perfect fit for my homebrew, and it came along at just the right moment for me to include it.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

This piece, by Tyler Jacobson for Wizards of the Coast's Magic: the Gathering: Rivals of Ixalan block, in 2018....which they later incorporated into their Plane Shift: Ixalan setting for D&D (free download, btw). I loved the artwork so much that it inspired me to create an entire new archipelago in my homebrew D&D campaign setting just to include it.

View attachment 257720

And not just that piece, either. There is just SO MUCH AWESOME ART in that whole block of Magic cards, holy cow. It was a nearly perfect fit for my homebrew, and it came along at just the right moment for me to include it.

View attachment 257721

That's IT! I'm using that medusa pirate captain in my SPELLJAMMER game!

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

So, this is surprising!

I actually thought that this (PLACES) would be one of the more popular categories. I mean, there are so many!

That's Demigods by Erol Otus, more popularly known as "The Cover of Deities & Demigods, you know, the cool book, before they changed it Legends and Lore."

What alien moonscape is this place? Have I spend a lot of time looking at it? Maybe. Have I spent too much time staring at it. You bet!

 

[GuyBoy]

This one: Tomb of the Grey Dragon in Glendower, Within the JG version of Blackmoor Campaign setting.
It always fascinated me as a 16 year old budding DM;

• what was a grey dragon like?
• why did this one get a Tomb built for it?
• how did it die?
• what is in the Tomb?
• what lurks in and below the ruined castle and church?

 

[GuyBoy]

@Snarf Zagyg
I’m sorry, just so sorry to break the rule of one, but I just couldn’t help it. This place!!!!!

 

[grimslade]

Sadly I can not decide between two pieces of art. I must break the sacred rule. Snarf, I cry your pardon.
City feel

Both of these formed what fantasy cities are in my settings.