View allAll Photos Tagged wizardsofthecoast
CHOMP!!
'GAH! Help! I almost fell! A great white is taking bites out of my Kit Kat surfboard!!"
"... eh... WHY are you surfing on a giant Kit Kat bar??"
"Well, I didn't think sharks like chocolate!"
"That... so didn't answer my question at all."
"So, HELP!"
"You want me to throw you a peppermint Lifesavers?"
"Oh, do you have one??"
═════════════════════════════════════
A year of the shows and performers of the Bijou Planks Theater.
White Tiger
Heroclix
Kit Kat Dark
The Hershey Company
LEGO CIty
60286
Beach Rescue ATV
* White Tiger has not yet been featured but the shark was in BP 2022 Day 230!
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/paprihaven/52294582796/]
Yet another beholder variant (reusing an earlier sculpt!!!), the Eye of Shadow is from the shadow realm, and can turn invisible. And teleport. As if Beholders weren't nasty enough already! You know, I wish they made the Eye of Chaos variant, but ah, well...
On one hand, this is ingenious. On the other hand, I can see it backfiring on the Mimic pretty badly. But now we have a new phobia anyway.
Very few people know that the head of Waterdeep's most powerful thieves' guild is a goldfish-obsessed Beholder.
A Beholder variant from 4th Edition, the Ultimate Tyrant is bigger than a pickup truck, and its eye rays are all meaner and nastier.
Certain trolls trained and bred for intelligence and martial skill work as capable (and huge) mercenaries and soldiers. The same treatment has made them resistant to fire as well, which is quite deadly.
Along with the haunted swamp motif, Ian Phillips also wanted his Beholder design to suggest Cthulhu, as he is a major Lovecraft fan.
This strange construct of bronze and brass and clockwork and gears can traverse even the deepest ocean depths!
Before the world was, they were. Before demons inhabited the Abyss, they dwelt there. The Qlippoth are pure. Alien. Unknowable. Chernobou Qlippoth are writhing, gelatinous creatures of horrific fecundity, infecting all around them with living, writhing poison.
From: Star Wars "The Mandalorian" Season 2 Episode 2
* Wizards of the Coast - 52/60 Knobby White Spider
* Lego - Mandalorian and Child
* Hot Wheels - The Razor Crest
After experimenting with many ideas including a fiery one, Kathryn Chodor decided to design her Beholder after the colors and fauna of the Underdark!
Steven Smith, whose Beholder design has inspired countless painters, specifically patterned his after a certain blue-eyed frozen-skinned villain from popular culture.
What do you think of when you hear "Baphomet?" Do you think of ancient conspiracies? The occult? The Freemasons? The Illuminati? That hermaphrodite goat with a pentagram? witches and black sabbaths? Ancient Babylonian religions? Secret teachings of the Knights Templar?
Nope. Turns out it's all a fraud. There is no Baphomet.
Firstly, goat imagery has shown up in many religions and cultures, and is often unrelated - from Herodotus mentioning Greek goat-gods to the Egyptian Banebdjedet, to more modern things, they are not necessarily related. Attempting to draw one unbroken line of conspiracies because a really common animal pops up as a motif really does not work. It would be like trying to claim that every rain/thunder god is the same. Most of the supposed links between them were made up from whole cloth in the 1800s. But aside from that, what is the origin of the name/demon/deity "Baphomet?"
The name first showed up in earnest in the 13th century, as part of a bunch of accusations against the Knights Templar. For some background, the Knights Templar ran afoul of the main Catholic church because A: they failed in retaking the Holy Land, and B: they ran a lot of banking and finance. If you haven't learned this from Jewish history, the people who run the banks tend to get killed often. So there was the accusation that the Templars worshiped the pagan god "Baphomet," often with their Catholic reliquaries claimed to be idols. In tracing back the history of the term, the very first mention of Baphomet that anybody has ever found was in an 11th-century French language accusation against the Knights Templar, from when the major persecution was just beginning. When translated, it says, "As the next day dawned, they[Templars] called loudly upon Baphomet; and we prayed silently in our hearts to God, then we attacked and forced all of them outside the city walls."
This doesn't say much, does it? Actually, it really helps, because surrounding literature can provide context. The Knights Templar had been accused of incorporating Islamic beliefs into their religion, though this was a fraud - the western European concept of Islam at the time was far different than the real thing. They thought, for example, that the god of the Muslims was Muhammad.
The generally-accepted spelling for Muhammad at the time (and for centuries afterward) was Mahomet.
The French statement was an accusation that the Templars were worshipping Mahomet, only they misspelled it into Baphomet.
Baphomet is a typo.
From there, it just sort of picked up steam as a nebulous pagan god that the Knights Templar were accused of worshiping - generally with no goat imagery or even anything more satanic than, "All pagan gods are devils."
In the 19th century, Eliphas Levi combined a lot of occultic goat imagery, including some ancient goats, the Sabbath sacrificial goats, the Goat of Mendes, Pan, The Green Man, Banebdjedet, and a particular nature deity worshiped in witchcraft that resembled a goat with a third, burning horn. He drew the hermaphrodite Sabbatic goat that is now famous today, and called it Baphomet, and claimed that it had always been worshiped, and pretty much made it the embodiment of the pentagram. In fact, this was the first time that the pentagram went from "random occult symbol" to "the sign of all that is Satan." Levi also supposedly based the goat sketch on a gargoyle he saw.
Aleistar Crowley took this and ran with it, declaring Baphomet to be his god and the "Mystery of Mysteries." And from there it just sort of spread into public consciousness as having always been the identity of any goat demon or god or belief that has ever existed.
Baphomet's identification with Freemasonry is due to the accusations of a man named Leo Taxil, who also claimed that Albert Pike (the man who made Freemasonry religious) called Satan God. However, Taxil was a liar, and even admitted as much before a public audience - he made up stories about the Masons to drive the Catholics into a furor so he could embarrass them later. The religious aspects of Freemasonry are sort of a Hindu-flavored Unitarianism, anyway. But the damage was done, and this only pushed Baphomet more into the public consciousness as a major occult figure.
So, there you have it. One misspelled name, a bunch of overzealous Catholics, and a couple of lying occultists. And that's where Baphomet came from! A TYPO.
Selected Bibliography:
First mention of Baphomet - 1098 letter by Anselm of Ribemont.
Partner, Peter (1987). The Knights Templar and Their Myth.
Read, Piers Paul (1999). The Templars.
Barber, Malcolm (2006). The Trial of the Templars (2nd ed.).
Barber, Malcolm (1994). The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple.
Barber, Malcolm; Bate, Keith (2010). Letters from the East: Crusaders, Pilgrims and Settlers in the 12th-13th Centuries.
Jackson, Nigel & Michael Howard (2003). The Pillars of Tubal Cain.
The Oxford English Dictionary.
Michelet, Jules, ed. (1851). Le procès des Templiers. II volumes.
Michelet, Jules (1860). History of France.
Wright, Thomas (1865). "The Worship of the Generative Powers During the Middle Ages of Western Europe".
Leo Taxil's confession is in a variety of locations. Here is an on-line resource: freemasonry.bcy.ca/texts/taxil_confessed.html
The most feared spirit among the Algonquin people, the Wendigo is a primal demon of bloodlust and cannibalism, forcing people to devour the flesh of other humans. When one appears in its true skin without a possessed body, it is nearly unstoppable.
I think that this fae troll is meant to represent a Scrag - an aquatic troll, which heals when in water.
Billions of years ago, the Great Race of Yith were earth's dominant species. They built great cities with their advanced technology, and even learned how to travel through time by projecting their minds across the aeons into the bodies of others. In time, they saw their eventual extinction at the hands of the flying Polyps, and so transported themselves far into the future, to a time when the Polys no longer existed.
As a celestial Lillend, Issaya is devoted to the beauty of art. She inspires creativity wherever she goes.
Solitary coastal dragons, they are obsessed with death and entropy - although not evil, decay suffuses their brilliant lives.
Viewpoints like this make me suspect the sanity of heroes.
Featured on Life In Plastic: nerditis.com/2018/04/27/life-in-plastic-toy-review-the-kr...
The Demon Queen of Fungus only takes a humanoid form out of mockery. She is unknowable and vast, and cannot be killed in any way that matters. All that thrives in death and decay and rot is reflected within her.
People who know what this is already will either laugh or point out inaccuracies. For people who don't...
This is a mostly-accurate reconstruction of the final chamber, i.e. the "boss room" of the INFAMOUS 1970s D&D module, The Tomb of Horrors (it gets remade every edition, BTW). It is EXTREMELY FAMOUS, and also EXTREMELY INFAMOUS as possibly the most brutal module ever released. Y'see, the Tomb is owned by Acererak, a Demilich - a lich so old and powerful that all hat remains of his body is his skull, with jewels set in the eyes and teeth (I know, I know - but that tiny gold skull is the only skull I had in this scale. It's actually TO SCALE with D&D minis). Acererak wants to be left alone, is very intelligent, very devious, and has a sense of humor. So here's a rundown of SOME of the traps you will face in the Tomb of horrors. SOME. Not all:
-There are two entrances. Walk in the wrong entrance, and get sealed in tthe chamber forever. Walk in the right one, and the ceiling might squish you.
-There is a gigantic stone gargoyle face with a door-sized open mouth. It looks so inviting... but anything that goes inside is instantly destroyed by the Sphere of Annihilation in the mouth, just out of sight.
-One room is a big chapel, lined with pews (with hinges, hmmm!), with an altar at the end (radiating a good aura!), and a glowing mist-filled portal archway. If you open the pews, you find gold (it'[s fake gold, worth nothing), and the pews spray poison gas everywhere. Touch the altar, and the good aura goes away, and it shoots a lightning bolt down the aisle. Go into the portal, and it steals all your clothes and gear, swaps your gender, and spits you back out in a berserker rage until your friends beat the rage out of you. The solution is to find a hidden ring-sized slot in the wall and sacrifice a magic ring to open the door. If you lack a ring, one is provided for you in another room, in a treasure chest filled with poisonous vipers.
-Three levers. Tilt them all up, and you might escape. Tilt them down, and everybody dies.
-This room has a long spike pit. You have to clinb down and tiptoe between the spikes to proceed. But the last five feet oir so is a spring-loaded trap with MOAR SPIKES.
-In one room, there is a secret door in the wall. W hen you find it and pick the lock and open it, it turns out to be a spring-loaded spear trap.
-One room has several spiked pits. You can jump over them. But the space just past the last pit is a trap door, dropping you onto more spikes.
-Walk into a room, everybody breathes sleep gas and is knocked out. Then the steamroller comes a-rollin' in...
-This one room is filled with broken debris, and has some nice, sturdy tapestries on the walls. The room shakes like an earthquake, tossing you around. You can steady yourself by grabbing the tapestries, only it turns out that they are disguised green slimes, and will kill you. The only way out is behind a tapestry.
-In one room, a powerful lich declares himself to be Acererak and attacks. Turns out he's a zombie in disguise. A special holy staff in the room can kill him... though it's not really holy, just a joke. If you kill him, EVERYTHING COLLAPSES AND EXPLODES AND THERE ARE ALARMS... no it doesn't, it's just a joke again. Ha-ha.
-Finally, there is a door with a big lock in it. If you insert the correct key (the wrong one will zap you), and turn it... nothing happens. Turn the key three times. And then there is a five-second countdown - see, that wasn't a door, just a keyhole and switch. The final chamber will rise up from the floor beneath you, so get out of there in five seconds or get smooshed.
-Acererak is just a skull on the shelf. He won't bother you if you don't bother him. But if you DO bother him in any way, he can isntantly steal your soul and store it in a gem. And then eat it (though people can still be resurrected somehow, after). Breaking the skull is nearly impossible, and more of a puzzle than a fight (except in 4th Edition, at which point it is an INSANELY difficult fight with Mister Instakill).
So yes, this is a picture of one of D&D's most dangerous villains ever. A tiny little skull on a shelf. Who built his home based on troll logic.
Featured on Poe Ghostal's Pic of the Day: www.poeghostal.com/2012/09/pic-of-the-day-the-tomb-of-hor...
Featured on Life In Plastic: nerditis.com/2013/01/25/life-in-plastic-dd-and-the-tomb-o...
The closest thing there is to a neutral Beholder, the Spectator is sometimes capable of playing well with others. Only sometimes.