As regular readers know, Matt Morrow does a lot of art for Raging Swan Press (as for me, his style almost perfectly encapsulates my beloved old-school feel). Check out what he just sent me—bathe in its awesome old-school goodness!
Matt’s awesome because not only does he do me a very cool image he also creates a banner for this very site! I have my banners on random rotate—think of it as a visual sneak attack—so here’s a look at the banner in case it hasn’t yet assaulted your eyeballs:
Now, the perceptive among you might notice something. This image is loosely inspired by an image from a classic Basic module. Do you know which one? If you do, leave a comment below. I’ll give a free Raging Swan Press PDF (even our flagship product GM’s Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing) to the first 1d6 people to get it right.
Finally, Matt’s part of Encoded Design’s Patreon campaign. If you like his style, you can sign up to get cool character art ready for use in your campaign (or to serve as your own character sketch) every month. As you know, I’m a huge fan of Patreon (our Patreon campaign has been a tremendously positive influence on Raging Swan Press) so if you if you want cool artwork, I’d urge you to take a look at Encoded Design’s campaign.
Isn’t inspired by B2 The Keep on the Borderlands? The perspective is the same at least.
It looks like it’s 30 seconds before the Keep on the Borderlands cover, just before the attack starts!
Wonderful homage there, although those goblons must have taken a few character levels (and a shield), because they’ve done a bit better than the original ones in Jim Roslof’s art 🙂
Damn I really feel like running the Caves of Chaos again now!
B2 The Keep on the Borderlands
Yes this art really does bring back that old school feelings & inspiration. Nostalgically reminding us why we love Dungeons & Dragons so much. The new Banner is really awesome addition to the website. I believe the art is inspired by B2 The Keep on the Borderlands. Also congratulations Raging Swan press for the hard work at paizo on the Pathfinder side of the business to be a among the top sellers!
It’s definitely The Keep on the Borderlands. And a very nice homage at that.
Keep on the Borderlands
BloodStone Pass (1985)?? 🙂
Love your rpg-work by the way.
Kind Regards, Peter
Keep on the Borderlands, 1979
I’ll go with B5: Horror on the Hill
And you are correct, Steve! Congrats! (I did B2 a couple of months ago for everyone who guessed that other classic adventure). Steve, if you email me at creighton (at) ragingswan [dot] com with your PDF choice I’ll send it through to you!
Hey there, Creighton. I hope you and yours are well. I really really like the artwork done by Matt! It’s a hard question, but if I had to settle on just only one cover of a classic basic module, I think I’d have to go for B5: Horror on the Hill (like Steve Bonario did). I really find that the image is quite similar to the one that Matt Morrow did, except the hammer wielder isn’t in Matt’s version, the one calling the charge isn’t holding a sword & there are trees instead of craggy hills. Also (reading further into this), in the version by Matt the hill that you do see kinda resembles a dragon with it’s body hunkered downwards to the ground. This could be a further homage to B5, what with the young red dragon that the PCs fight at the end. Anyway, win or lose, I really enjoy reading your blogs, Creighton. I think you got the right stuff! If I ever start DMing again, I’ll definitely look further into Raging Swan Press’s PDFs 😉
Cheers!
Well spotted Bradley! If you email me at creighton (at) ragingswan [dot] com with your PDF choice I’ll send it through to you!
I hope you get back into GMing soon!