Thursday, June 30, 2011

Bad Ass Erol Otus Elf

I've been on an elven kick as of late for reasons I'll not yet reveal, but the result is that I'm looking at a lot of roleplaying supplemental material covering our pointy-eared counterparts. When it comes to roleplaying material for elves, Roger E. Moore's articles on the demihumans in D&D certainly stands out. There's a reason that the deities he created in those articles still linger on in the game to this day.

It has been awhile since I read his "The Elven Point of View." I haven't looked at it since my return to old school gaming and thought I should reacquaint myself with its contents. I fired up my Dragon Magazine Archive and found it with a quick search. And there, right smack in the center of the article's first page was this

I certainly did not remember this depiction of an elf, but it is truly a bad ass one. This ain't Orlando Bloom chewing fletchings off an arrow. This is an elf that's going to wreck your day with either his twisty staff of flying lanterns, his eldritch eye magic, or his long sword of Dead Kennedys.

Sometimes all you need is an alternate take on a stereotype to change your entire world view. From now on, all my elves have this guy as a relative.

9 comments:

Keith Sloan said...

"Long sword of Dead Kennedys"

Very funny!

ze bulette said...

I never noticed the reference in this one, but between this and his Gamma World DK reference, he's officially a bona fide fan. Maybe I can trade him some bootlegs!

Unknown said...

Neat! I wonder what he does in his downtime.

I'll have to take a look at those articles, they sound interesting.

Carter Soles said...

Quite a bad ass indeed. Thanks for sharing this.

Carter Soles said...

P.S. Could you reveal which issue of Dragon contains said article?

Unknown said...

@Carter Soles Dragon#60, or The Best of Dragon Magazine vol.3.

TheMetal1 said...

+1 on the Long Sword of Dead Kennedys. Great catch on that, is Otus a Punk Rock fan?

Astronut said...

My interpretation of elves was inspired from day one by the depiction in the original FR Cyclopedia (I think it was by Jeff Easley). The armour's an elaborate cross between samuria and Melnobone and a sour face definitely out of Moorcock. From that point on, my elves were arrogant bastards that placed their ideals of beauty above everything else, including the lives of lesser races...

Akrasia said...

This is one of my favourite Otus pictures! (I believe it's supposed to portray Corallon Larethon [sp?], the chief deity of the elves.)

Also, "Long sword of Dead Kennedys" = bi-win.