Canonfire!

Sat Apr 25, 2009 8:26 pm Players Handbook and DMG Screen

Since that statue features on both the PHB and DMG screen (first incarnations of both of these products I believe), is there an adventure related to these images? I have heard that the artist that painted the image for the PHB ended up with every character having Gygax' likeness...which I never noticed before though I can see how you can make the argument. I'm sure I'm not the only one that looked at the cover and the screen and thought about which god is that idol supposed to represent and how much G.P. would those eyes bring and what's outside that door . . . etc.

Mon Apr 27, 2009 9:25 pm Re: Players Handbook and DMG Screen

Mon Nov 16, 2009 1:43 pm Re: Players Handbook and DMG Screen

Hiya

[quote="grodog"]

Mon Nov 16, 2009 3:01 pm

Ah, memories. I once wrote that statue into an adventure myself long, long ago. It was guarded by the big red efreet on the DMG cover. And once I changed an idol in "Citadel by the Sea" (from an old Dragon magazine) to match the PHB cover. In that case I used the PHB cover to show the players what they were looking at, and they reacted with a surprising degree of trepidation. It seems their imaginations had been working on that picture for years, too. Good times.

Mon Nov 16, 2009 3:12 pm

also theres a description of the statue in some hackmaster monster manual about how it represents a fire god or something.

i really like to search for pictures of it :D

Wed Nov 18, 2009 9:57 am Little Keep

Okay, based on that, I've put my order in for the Little Keep.

Wed Nov 18, 2009 10:12 am Tomb of Horrors

Oh, and I noticed that pretty much the same face as that idol is all over the Tomb of Horrors art work. It's mixed in with the Egyptian-looking art of the walls.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1GrPn-zPqXU/ReJXTqShKzI/AAAAAAAAAD4/ZGWYls7FftQ/s1600-h/ToHGraphic3.jpg

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/ToH_Gallery/ToHGraphic4m.jpg

...Now I see WotC has all the art up at:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ag/20051031a

I didn't realize they revised it for 3.5:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20051031a

in addition to the Return.[/url]

Wed Nov 18, 2009 9:53 pm

The 3.5e version is far more survivable than the original, btw, but still deadly. No significant changes other than the mechanics, though. My players loved it.

Tue Dec 01, 2009 8:53 am Ba'al

There are sort of two answers that I found for who that idol is on the cover of the Players Handbook.

1. There is a link I found which shows that Gygax said the artist (Trampier) was depicting "a Baal idol of the Carthaginians or other Phonecians." That is at:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/3381011-post702.html

2. The HackMaster people (Kenzer & Company) developed a spoof of the idol to be the Type XI demon, known as Pagnyr'Parkus: 18 HD, 120 HP, HackFactor 119. The HackMaster B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands uses an idol in an abandoned temple above ground closer to its keep than to its Mines of Chaos but there are no stats or much background information there. I found this stat information at:

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:oY02u8-pTcQJ:designanddraughting.com/forum/about5319.html+Pagnyr%27Parkus&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

I had thought that the idol would be in the Mines of Chaos but now that I have the HackMaster B2 module I see that this B2 is significantly different than the TSR B2 as there is no direct spoof of the Evil Chapel of the Caves of Chaos in my opinion.

So for a Greyhawk setting, I'll probably consider it Baal and want to use the HackMaster stats. HackMaster does offer their take on what the eyes of the statue are worth and what magical properties they have. It could be a newly built temple in a TSR B2 setting by a new group of orcs which get lizardmen converts...I'm thinking "out loud"....

Thu Dec 03, 2009 12:13 am Wikipedia on Baal and Moloch

I read that the names Baal and Moloch might be interchangeable and then read that Moloch is covered in the Monster Manual 2. So I just now had a chance to look up the entry and it's there. The picture there and description do seem to resemble the figure on the PH cover quite a bit. I wonder if anyone else agrees....

...Now that I look in wikipedia for the reference, I can't find it. Maybe I'm confused with someone's post on a board somewhere. But a different search for both those names did turn up a page that links those two names together:

http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Moloch_-_Baal/id/1774523

then I found a list of demons sorted by levels of hell:

http://necromancergames.yuku.com/forum/viewtopic/id/6698

Ah hah, I found it:

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/05/who-is-that-guy.html

I'm going in circles--doh! Maybe when Gygax said, "a Baal idol" Moloch was the specific one. And now I can go to sleep at night.