Homage: 1987
For all subscribers: Here is your exclusive advance look at the cartoon homage from Episode 15.
As James Lowder and I chatted during Episode 15, I was working on a cartoon homage to one of the first Forgotten Realms supplements, Waterdeep and the North. Written by FR creator Ed Greenwood with a cover painting by Keith Parkinson, this book details the premiere city in the setting and is filled with characters and locations that have become touchstones for D&D campaigns everywhere (whether they’re actually set in the Realms or not).
The cover features Xanathar, an murderously insane beholder who runs the Thieves Guild in Waterdeep and has become such a fixture among D&D and FR fans that in recent years he was used as the title character for a book of rules variants—Xanathar’s Guide to Everything.
This is the second cartoon homage I’ve done to a Keith Parkinson painting, and just like the first one (Queen of the Spiders) this one has the problematic issue of a drow character being painted as a human of African descent. I don’t want to retread the whole issue again (but go back to that post to read about it in more depth) … but when all was said and done, I decided to do my homage to reflect the painting as it exists rather than revising the interpretation of what a drow looks like.
This time, I’m taking the opposite approach. Because Shinda Darkeyes is the only drow in the image, and is not the central character, I can make her more elven, and change her skin pigmentation and still feel that overall I’m being true to the original painting. Of course, that still comes with a lesser amount of controversy as one of the most common arguments among D&D fans is what color a drow’s skin SHOULD be.
Some say it should be charcoal black, some say a deep blue, others think that the Parkinson version is correct despite its racist connotations, but I’ve always been a fan of making drow skin a dusky purple. So that’s how it is in this drawing.
All of the characters in this image are named NPCs who have appeared dozens of times in FR game products and fiction. You should look them up.
As a subscriber to this newsletter, you’re seeing this art three days before it is released for general consumption. You also have the option to buy an art print of this or any of the cartoon homages (and if you’re a paid subscriber, you get a discount on those purchases).
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