Saturday, January 12, 2013

Character Portrait: Flaming Skeleton

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A bit of background on this drawing:

This artwork  was originally created specifically for a paper miniature included as a free bonus in our d12 calendars.

About the character:

Flaming skeletons have long been a staple of fantasy... The most obvious example rides a motor cycle with flaming wheels, but this guy's not related to him at all, I swear it!
Recently I had a lengthy chat with one of my friends about the phenomenon, and how it's a particularly odd sort of idea. I figure they came about because they're terrifying, both as symbols of death and as walking examples of a terrible way to die, but perhaps the main appeal from a gaming perspective is that they're actually pretty dangerous in comparison to their wimpier unignited counterparts. We also had a chat about how this would even be possible... Bones don't seem particularly combustible. He decided (and lamented) that we'd just have to settle for "a wizard did it." Personally, making a burning skeleton seems pretty easy to me, it just takes some bones, some kerosene and a flair for the dramatic. Making that guy walk around on his own... now that's the tricky part!

Kev's Lounge Friday Character Portraits is a weekly feature on this blog where I take a bit of art that I've created somewhere along the line for some or other purpose and present it along with a little bit of back story for you to use as in role playing games as hand-outs, or as inspiration for characters or NPCs.  Here are some more in the series: 
1. Town's Guard Captain
2. Female Rogue
3. Arch-Wizard
4. Pit Fighter 
5. Skeleton Pirate 
6. Serpent Cult Assassin
7. The Gambler  
9. The Flirtatious Barmaid 

There will be another character portrait up next friday!

As I mentioned before, this guy was designed as a paper miniature. That miniature's available completely free as part of our D12 Desk Calendar set, available for free download here. He's nice and easy to build and will look great on your gaming table. Go get yourself a copy and throw this guy up against your party in your next game!
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