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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 5985683" data-attributes="member: 22424">Interesting. I enjoyed that article a whole lot more than "Wandering Monsters", and yet I disagreed with it considerably more.Inspiring in what way? From an artist's point of view, surely the cowardly and the weak can serve as inspiration just as much as the strong, noble and heroic? From a DM's point of view, the inspiration for using goblins is easy - they're useful and easy-to-use low-level fodder to throw at your PCs.Not every monster needs to be a world-beater. Some of them are the pathetic and the down-trodden.In that case, I'm a giant of a man, with rippling muscles, a full head of hair, and the intellect of a genius. Whenever I walk past, adoring crowds pause to remark, "what a guy!"When it comes to illustrations in the Monster Manual, I fall squarely on the "meta-world view" side of the fence. The in-world view makes the book less easy to use, and that's a bad thing.I actually like that illustration, but he's right that it doesn't say "cowardly". Nor, indeed, does it particularly say "stealthy", "agile", or "weak".In which case, the illustration is at odds with the text. And in that case, something needs to be changed.All of this is fine. I like his thinking. It's just a shame that, in removing any "world fool" aspect from the illo, he also seems to have removed the key descriptors: small, stealthy, agile, cowardly, weak.Again: I like the illustration, and think that if it gets beefed up a bit it would be an ideal model for a hobgoblin. And I also like that they're going through this thought process, both in the 'lore' and 'illustration' sides.It's just that I don't think this illustration matches the key descriptors given for the goblin. It just looks like he's done a really good job building the wrong thing.IMO, and YMMV, of course.</blockquote>

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