The Great Tower of Maximus Dec 2020 - a photo on Flickriver

The Great Tower of Maximus Dec 2020

            Sketchbook stuff. I used to play Dungeons and Dragons with my friends...oh long ago. And we ended on an incomplete adventure leaving the door open whatever happened to our characters. Sometimes when I feel like drawing but have no ideas I scribble out pictures from D&D. Several of us guys liked to scribble and draw and we'd do so while playing. It was fun imagine what the setting looked like and how each of us imagined it. In the 80s there was this stupid cultural worry that Satanism was leading to the abduction and murder of 10s of thousands children....patently absurd. In fact me and my band of nerds were smart and snarky and thought it was actually pretty funny (except for the poor people caught up in the legal system because of supposed "moral" leaders who fanned this crap and ruined lives...but never suffered the same ruin for actual, unchristian immoral behavior). Anyway D&D was a target of the moralists...although it is a game that really works the imagination, fosters teamwork, social interaction, simulated fraught situations and solutions or consequences...and math...lots of math, reading comprehension, etc. There were few graphics and the entire game is envisioned in your head. I've never found a video game that flexed the imagination quite like original D&D. The adventures and stories are fluid and unpredictable and one-off. They go wherever the story takes you, based on your group's decisions. When I scribble I often go back to this material for inspiration. 

My character was Maximus, a cleric who became a cleric of Zagyg...a deity of magic and chaos. Clerics generally are like nature shamans and are concerned with healing, nature, animals...or if it's an evil cleric death, raising dead, etc. Max was a mess of character types. Sort of mage - sort of cleric - sort of fighter, since clerics are also like knights and use weapons. And chaos was my ethos...which isn't so far from my life which despite all attempts always flows with the currents, kind of randomly, and rarely in the directions I plan.
So I sat down to draw and started thinking about Max's legacy...and his years long after adventuring. Here's how I imagine Max's secret Great Tower. Snugged between a rough, Oregon-like coast and Adirondack-type mountains. The way in from any side is treacherous. The curtain wall forms a rough 5 pointed star. The tower is 5-sided made of millions of rough cut granite and fieldstones. Not much frill. How he managed to move so much stone...or from where is a mystery. Of note are the 5 floating towers. They are connected by 2 walkways but how they were built or remain stable is an engineering conundrum. And they've been there a long time. One tower...The "Great Blunder Tower" seems to have been burnt and badly damaged long ago. The others have names as well...but I haven't thought of them yet. It has a flat top (presumably) from which a massive light shines forth from every night. The few who've seen the tower and lived to tell say the flickering light starts at the last ray of sundown everyday..no matter the weather...and continues to the first ray of sun up. The sea, forests and mountains around are full of of ancient ruins, caves, stories and creatures. The land is saturated in magic....and chaos! There is only a few tortured, secret ways in and fewer out. It is thought to contain a huge library, magiderium, menagerie, museum...and the authoritative documents describing the adventures of the Six from Iron and how to find the other members of the Six. And who knows what else is to be found there? Nobody's lived to tell so far.
   

Taken on: January 2, 2021

Sets appears in: • Arts & Crafts • D&D more » • D&D Doodles March 2020 « less

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Camera: samsung SM-S767VL, f/1.7, 1/40 sec, 3.7mm, ISO 200 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	samsung SM-S767VL
Aperture:	f/1.7
Exposure Time:	0.025 sec (1/40)
Focal Length:	3.7mm
ISO:	200
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	No Flash
Exposure Program:	Program AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Center-weighted average
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	S767VLUDS9BTJ1
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