Saturday, June 11, 2011

Less Lamia, Noble

Still redoing the Fiend Folio...

The Lamia, Noble is just a souped up version of the D&D lamia--which sucked. I'll repost what I already said...


Sources are conflicted about what exactly a lamia looks like, so they're no help, and for the most part it just seems like a succubus-lite. Many versions have a snake tail, which is cool, but 30 other women in the Manual have a snake tail, so whatever.

The original Greek is extremely good, though--Lamia was a queen who ate children and had the ability to pull her own eyes out and make prophecies. That's where I'd go with it...

That's acrylic on paper.

Got big plans for the other L's so I'll do them later...

3 comments:

Spawn of Endra said...

What does she do with the eyes after she pulls them out? Does she put them back in? Does she cry blood each time they are removed?

mordicai said...

In some edition didn't they make Lamia like...vampire centaurs? Or something? & in the current one they are...made out of beetle swarms? That is something, but for me-- I'd go the distance, make it a swarm of bedbugs.

Dan said...

S.o. Endra - did you ever see the original Clash of the Titans movie? I think one of the three witches is Lamia. Three blind witches, that have to share one eyeball that they pass around. Might well be the best part of a good movie.

It irritated me no end when I first discovered this D&D habit of reinterpreting monsters to be less cool and interesting than their mythological inspiration. Same goes for the Kelpie which you covered earlier (replacing a viciously manipulative demon/ghost/horse/faerie/goblin monster with... a nerfed nymph? Why?)