R. Ruddock's Art Blog & A Boat-Load of Algol Artwork

Presented below are several illustrations by the talented R. Ruddock for the forthcoming Planet Algol booklet; please check out his blog Fantasy Obscure for higher resolution versions as well as more artwork. As an aside, I'm very pleased to be close to finalizing an arrangement with another very talented and appropriate artist for Planet Algol 1.

The Planet Algol playtest team approaches The Fane of St. Toad

A Khoolvi Fighting-Woman with her quident.

A Mhoght Fighting-Man.

Fighting-Woman wearing a Destier.

Agogi Man couple, perhaps a husband-and-wife adventuring team?

A Vlesh Man couple. They definitely would not be down with punk rock.

The albino bird-things of the Bornite Mountains. I particularly dig the old-tymey vibe of this illo!

Wasplingier Mercenaries wasplinging.

Chapter 2.12 - "Beneath the Toad-Temple"

Part I Here, Part II Here.

The party stands panting outside the black basalt toad-sphinx, facing the double doors with blades and lasers raised, slowly backing away to a point several hundred yards distant from the toad-fane.

They wait with weapons clutched in sweaty, quivering fists. And wait. After several turns the adventurers have calmed down and reassessed their situation. They cautiously reenter the dank toad-temple.

They are pleasantly surprised to find no shambling horrors lurking in ambush and resume their exploration, descending a staircase behind a door of moldy, rotting wood.

They find a complex or corridors and doorways, and slowly explore this second level. Behind one door they find a small chamber holding several rotting wardrobes; a shelf bearing books, boxes and sundry objects; and another door with an unfamiliar glyph of glowing energy inscribed upon it's surface.

The door is avoided as the party searches for loot. Kalervo the Cactoid picks up one of the mouldering pamplets, and begins reading a tale of a "Hierophant Toad" and the toad cult. Rodan rudely shuts him up and harangues the party about how "Nobody is to ever read out loud anything they find in a dungeon!"

The boxes contain cones of black incense, which smell of exotic swamp blossoms. Baron Rodan grabs these, imagining they would provide an erotic atmosphere for sport with his Hyperborean Slave-Woman.

There are several whistles and flutes, of some organic brown matter; a covered bowl holding repellent moldy wafers; and a small green vial. All of these are ignored, as well as the mottled, blotchy gray robes in the three wardrobes.

The companions continue their explorations. One door seems to emit a disgusting, vaguely sexual miasma, and is ignored. From behind a pair of large, verdigris encrusted, locked valves a faint multitudinous croaking is heard. The party turns away and continues.

A barred door is found, in a room decorated with a motif of toad-beings mummifying and entombing their own kind. Steestakarus boldy removes the bar and opens the door. Kalervos beam lamp shows flashes of a small, bare room of clay bricks and panels, decorated, of course, in a gruesome toad motif.

Kalervo, Sleestakarus, and Baron Rodan cautiously enter the chamber, while the holder of the chemical torch, Frelix, freezes and pauses on the threshold of the intermittently illuminated empty chamber.

With a loud crashing and banging two of the clay wall-panels erupt into fragments and out of the dust shambles two withered, brown toad-things. Rodan snatches out the small silver disc, looted from beneath the ruined serpent man complex, and begins incanting the charm inscribed upon it.

A melee erupts between the toad-mummies and the three experienced adventurers while the Piebald Man Ferlix stays back, holding forth the chemical torch.

Rodan and Kalervo spar with one of the things, who seems unable to strike either of them, while Sleestakarus swings his flame-shaped magic longsword, "Hateful Vengeance," at the other. Ferlix overcomes his misgivings and rushes to the Lizardoids aid with his battleaxe, swinging wildly and wide. Sleestakrus is injured by one of the iron-hard blows of the toad-thing.

The first mummy grows frustrated with the supernaturally protected Rodan and Kalervo and attacks Ferlix before Baron Rodan cuts its in half with the glowing red energy blade of his Phasic Sword. Ferlix is bludgeoned unconscious by toad-mummy fists and is dragged away by Sleestakarus while Kalervo and Rodan finish off the remaining undead horror.

The room contains no treasure, and after Ferlix is brought back to his feet, the party begins the long, hot, exhausting journey back to the blue tower, running out of water half-ways through. Baron Rodan remembers that he didn't need to be drinking any of the water stores, as his advanced ancient suit armor recycles his body moisture for personal consumption.

Chapter 2.11 - "Worms of the Wastes and the Stones of the Toad"

Part I Here, Part III Here.

The party spends a long, hot day trudging across the rust flake dunes, circumnavigating the relatively short yet miles-wide and deep canyon that stands between them and their goal.

By the time exhaustion sets in they look to be a half-days journey from the black toad-sphinx, and suggestions of unwholesome details become apparent. The next day the companions take stock of their dwindling water supply and beat the hoof to the toad-sphinx.

Hours later it stands a mile distant, the suggestions of wing-like organs, multiple eyes, and facial feelers become more distant among it's crumbling facade. As they continue their approach a man-height of length and foot-wide dun colored worm comes bursting from the rust ground next to the party, followed by four more of it's fellows. The heavy, club-like ends of the worms bludgeon at the party as they flee, and both Ferlix and Rodan are injured by the worm gauntlet.

At a brisk pace the party closes the distance to the toad-sphinx. The vague suggestions of a legion of arthropod and amphibian fossils mark the grey cliff-face below the companions as they cautiously approach the front of the sphinx, following the crumbling remnants of a trail of hexagonal ceramic tiles decorated with flies.

Standing before a large double door leading into the ancient basalt monument, Sleestakarus shows initiative and swings one of the bronze valves open, revealing a long dim hall and engulfing the party in a cloud of humid, fetid air. The lizardoid is refreshed by the moist air, as it is far more suited to its constitution than the dry desert climate.

The party cautiously, methodically, explore the interior, finding what seems to be an odd shrine of moderate size to toads and strange, sinister toad-idols. They find a sculpture of green metal depicting an open-mouthed toad, with a keyhole on its back and the gleam of precious metals inside its mouth.

Sleestakarus cautiously prods the inside of the toad's mouth with the butt of his trident and it snaps shut, severing the shaft-end.

Exploring further they find a large, presumably deep pit emitting the swampy, humid air and beyond it stands a massive toad idol, resembling the toad-sphinx itself, with four small mottled green-brown gems for eyes. Rodan and Sleestakarus cautiously proceed, hugging the wall and pensively avoiding the vicinity of the pit. Baron Rodan gives the lizardoid a boost up onto the plinth that supports the huge toad idol and Sleestakarus tries prying out one of the gem-eyes with the tines of his trident.

The gem flies out of its socket and lands clattering on the damp stone floor. Suddenly the party collectively holds their breath and gazes about anticipating something but nothing occurs. Without incident Sleestakarus pries out the next two gems, Rodan snatching them up when they land on the floor. However, when removing the final fourth gem it flies out with greater force and arches up tumbling before plunging into the sinister pit.

A faint plop is heard before the party panics and runs out of the toad-sphinx...

Chapter 2.1 - "Treasure Of The Bloated, Obscene Toad-Sphinx"

 May 10, 2010. The Adventurers:

Ferlix - Lhoyg Man Amnesiac Fighting-Man with Tales of Treasure

Kalervo - Folksy, Sand-Wise Cactoid

Baron Rodan the Scrounger - Zermish Man Vassal of Darath Ymph

Sleestakarus - Semi-Famous Lizardoid Pit Fighter and Former Gladiatoral Slave

Part II Here, Part III Here.

A Piebald Man stumbles through the red dunes, caked with fine scarlet grit and bearing a bloody, ragged bandage about his hairless head. Clad in brigantine and with a crossbow and axe hanging from his harness, he clutches his reeling head as he stumbles through the clouds of ruddy dust.

The party returns to their blue tower and order their slave and skeletroopers to unload their baggage from the expedition to the Deodand-haunted ruined city. Rodan the scrounger has a bloody wad of rags pressed against a bleeding eyesocket...one of his eyeballs was slit and ruined in their recent confrontation with Deodands, the near-featureless faceplate of the helmet of his new suit of ulfire-alloy adavanced ancient articulated plate armor bears a vertical rend from the Deodand's eye-removing talon-slash.

The skeletrooper sentries shout and point bony fingers at the stumbling Lhoyg fighting-man that emerges from the dust flurries. Baron Rodan shouts an order to hold fire, and with two of his companions, Kalervo and Sleestakarus, he walks towards the stranger while the rest of the party disperses to recover from their adventures.

The Lhoyg Man bears an almost healed head injury and is suffering from amnesia, remembering his name, Ferlix, his trade, Fighter, and the location of a looming, obscene, black basalt toad-sphinx along with rumors of great wealth within.

The three greedy adventurers ear's are intrigued by this tale and they resolve to join Ferlix in an expedition to the black toad-sphinx, located on the edge of the Iridium Plateau escarpment miles above and even more mile to the northwest.

After resting and preparing the party strikes out south and than west on Ornith-back in order to avoid confrontation to the hammer-staff bearing Shark Men troopers of the slaver The Shark Who Devours Human Lives. Arriving at the base of the towering, steely-gray escarpment, the travel northwards along it's toes until they arrive at the five-mile wide mouth of a titanic box canyon extending fifteen miles into the plateau. Northwards they can see the hunched black form of their destination, perched on the edge of the cliff-top on the northeastern edge of the canyon miles away.

The party casts their keen and seasoned eyes across the surrounding terrain, looking for some trail or path ascending the gargantuan cliffs looming above. Kalervo, with his highly honed desert-craft, finds a small tunnel hidden behind some red boulders. A narrow, cramped tunnel with a low ceiling ascending through the grey stone of the cliff at a steep angle with crude, irregular steps.

They begin ascending, with Baron Rodan at the lead, Kalvervo behind using a beam lamp to illuminate the steps through Rodan's legs. The newcomer, Ferlix, takes up the rear with a sputtering green chemical torch-flare.

After what seems like hours of laborious toil up the tortuous cramped stair Ferlix hear the sound of muffled voices from the tunnel ahead. The party halts and Sleestakarus slithers up the stairs sans light source or companions.

The Lizardoid Gladiator crawls up a small distance before hhe sees dim gray illumination ahead; he cautiously proceeds and sees the liht intensify where the small tunnel appears to emerge into a large chamber. He listens but hears no sound and returns to the party with his intelligence.

The party cautiously continues and when Rodan sticks his head into the chamber he sees a crowd of two or three score diversely malformed mutants clutching spears and clubs. The largest, holding a large stone-headed cudgel, orders him to put away his daggers soon the entire party is standing, surrounded by armed, vigilant mutants in a titanic oblong cavern, lit by cracks in one side admitting sunslight, filled with scattered crude stacked-stone huts.

Although the humans are treated with disdain and hostility, the mutant leader takes a liking to the Lizardoid and Cactoid and parleys with them. An arrangement is made for the party to swear a blood oath to not reveal the existence of or location of the mutant tribe, and a small tribute is made for allowing the humans to pass through the tribe's cavern to the surface above.

Sleestakarus and Kalervo question the mutant leader regarding the toad-sphinx and are informed that it is "A desolate place haunted by unclean spirits! A gate to a terrible hell-world lurks in it's depths! Our people have nothing to do with it, it is taboo!"

The party again ascends through a cramped, steep tunnel and after hours of leg-torment they arrive at the exit, leading to a narrow ledge on the face of the Iridium Escarpment with a steep knife-edge trail leading up to the Rust Desert above.

Staggering over the cliff-edge into the caked rust flakes of the Rust Desert, the party is exhausted as they make a rough camp while occasionally peering at the bloated basalt eidolon waiting for them across the canyon.