I haven't drawn dragons for 2-3 years, but in honor of the release of the new HOTD season, I decided to remind myself how to do it. This snaky one is my favorite
Another Shadis cover, since we actually came across a few we liked when first deciding on which cover to feature in our previous post on the magazine. Since we've already covered a little bit of the history of Shadis, here's a few bonus bits of info about this magazine!
The average structure of a Shadis issue was often an update on various goings-on with the team and their own various TTRPG adventures, ('Cries from The Attic'), a Q&A section with readers, and then what would move on to either retellings from TTRPG sessions, advertisements, shoutouts to certain notable figures in the community, tips and tricks for world building and writing your own campaigns, (Issue 08, for example, actually had an excellent introduction on writing criminal justice systems for GM's, written by Blackburn), and finally, a classifieds and mailing section called the 'Market Platz', for various similar zines, RPG publishers, as well as "bounties" placed by readers of Shadis itself, dedicated to reaching out to other readers of the magazine.
Bit of a late post, since we got busy, recently, and had nothing in the backlog. Our apologies! Have some dragons taken from various sources on the Gifcities Archive.
Released in 1992 for the PC-98, RPG Maker 'DANTE', also known as 'RPG Tsukūru Dante 98', was the very first Kadokawa RPG Maker engine, although not the first engine produced in the 'Dante' series, which had actually started in 1987.
Yoji Ojima, now acclaimed for working on most of the RPG Maker engines, actually began with the sequel program to the Dante 98, the Dante 98II. Sadly, I can't find the names of those who worked on the original Dante 98 program, although if I had to guess, likely worked on primarily by Kazuhiko Nishi and Keiichiro Tsukamoto.
Anyhow--the little clay(?) figures on the cover here are absolutely adorable. I also suggest actually giving the manual a read, it's been turned into a PDF on the IA, and is filled with a bunch of cute little illustrations and guides for how the program works.
Founded by Jolly Blackburn, of Knights of the Dinner Table fame, (which originated with Shadis), and co-written by John Zinser and David Seay, Shadis was a gaming magazine first published in 1990. Best remembered for including MTG cards with each issue, it was dedicated to tabletop gaming, and lasted until 1998, with the last issue being #53.
Starting in full black and white, later editions had colored covers and even fully colorized pages.
Issues up to #23 have been fully archived on IA, although certain later prints up to #48 are also available.
For as little as it may be, having at least four people who, despite our long inactivity, as well as the slightly niche nature of a lot of what we do, (post lots of retro dragons!), decided to follow us, just on the off chance we'll keep posting more silly giant lizards and classic games and books.
For a variety of reasons, we took a bit of a hiatus from Tumblr--disagreements with the management of the website, most particularly, but until we can properly set up an alternate page..as well as archive a lot of these posts proper...
Well, we may as well keep posting a few dragons here and there again.
Thank you.
To get us back in the groove, have a pretty famous dragon, if you're a fan of 4X games--Sss'ra, the Myrran Life/Chaos wizard! He's always been one of my favorite wizards, honestly. Very strong character, and, well, when I was younger, bipedal or not, getting to play as a dragon was always a win.
Picture this: Dragons using their caves to age cheese. Dragon Cheesemakers!!
The dragon coiled his enormous body, completely blocking the entrance of the tunnel that lead to the caves.
“No,” he snarled, smoke pluming from his nose.
The cheesemonger pinched the bridge of her own nose. “Look, I explained this to you at the start,” she tried once more. “I make cheese.”
“Yes,” the agreed, nodding his scaly head.
“Then I bring the cheese here.”
“Yes.”
“Then you store all the cheese in your cave, keeping it at the perfect temperature and humidity.”
“Yes.” He sounded particularly proud of this part.
“And then when the cheese has ripened,” she concluded. “I come to pick the cheese up again.”
A thunderous scowl clouded his maw. “No.”
“But that’s how it works!” she cried in exasperation. “I make the cheese, you store the cheese, I sell the cheese, I make more cheese!” She peered up at him. “You do realise I cannot bring you new cheese until I have sold this cheese.”
The dragon considered this for a moment. “Ah, but what if—” he began. “What if you go and make more cheese. And bring me the cheese. And I put it in my cave, with the rest of the hoard. And then I keep it there forever.”
“No,” she said flatly.
It was remarkable how much a dragon could look like it had just swallowed a lemon.
“You can’t keep cheese forever,” she insisted. “It will spoil and go bad!”
“You said it would get better and better!” the dragon roared indignantly. “And I take good care of them! With the air flow and the humidity and the temperature!”
“And that is great,” she said, trying to smile through her frustration. “But when a cheese is ripe, it’s ripe! Then you should not be kept anymore, it should be eaten.”
The dragon scraped it’s formidable claws against the stony ground and sulked.
“Look…” The cheese mongering business did not tend to require a lot of sweet-talking, but she was making an effort. “I’m sure the cheeses that aged in your cave are the best cheeses people have ever tasted. When they find out how delicious they are they will want us to make loads more. Maybe several caves’ worth!”
The reptilian eyes stared at her with disgruntled, reluctant interest. “Several caves?”
“If we’re lucky! And I could make so much cheese that I could bring you new cheese as soon as I pick up the aged cheese. Your cave would never even be empty!”
This seemed to strike a chord. The dragon lifted his head a little.
“And that would really be much better for the rest of your hoard,” she continued with fresh inspiration. “Because if you leave cheese too long, it might go bad and spoil the cheeses next to it too!”
A nervous ripple went through the beast’s scaly body, but he clearly was not convinced just yet. “But what sort of a hoard is it if I have to give it away,” he complained.
“Well! Cheese is not just any old hoard! It’s a developing creation! And you will have a hoard that is constantly developing too. Constantly changing, but, if we do this right, never shrinking.”
The dragon looked at her solemnly, wavering with uncertainty. Perhaps she shouldn’t hold it against the poor thing, it must be a difficult concept to wrap his head around.
“And I will tell you what,” she said encouragingly. “If business is good, I can start investing in some really good crumbly cheeses. You can keep those in your cave for five whole years!”
“That is quite a long time for humans, is it not?” he said, sounding a little more cheerful.
“Very long. Especially when it comes to cheese. Cheeses that have been aged that long are very expensive.”
In retrospect, she should perhaps have led with that. Gourmand or not, a dragon was still a dragon after all. A glittering, toothy grin appeared on her recalcitrant business partner’s shout and he moved just enough for her to move past him into the mountain.
“Tell me more about this expensive cheese that crumbles.”
She hid a smirk. “If you help me carry some of the current ones out, it would be my pleasure.”
Also known as Forgotten Worlds in the international release, Lost Worlds, (ロストワールド), is a side-scrolling shooter originally made as an arcade game by Capcom.
The 'Dust Dragon' is a boss the player(s) fight in the, well, Dust World level. He's honestly got a really freaky design that I love, most of his outward appearance is relatively normal...until you look at the gaping chest cavity and weaponized ribcage! In fact, the player literally tears open and reveals his organs by shooting at him...Brutal.
My piece for the Four Swords Winter's Delight zine! What could be cozier than sharing hot chocolate with friends? 💚❤️💙💜🖤
It's been very fun to work on this project, and I'm really excited to get to see all the other pieces now :D Thank you for all the work you put into it, everyone — especially Kahl, for organizing it all!
Hope everyone has a warm and happy end of the year ^_^
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