Thomas Cole, DM

Inspired by the If Romantic-Era Artists Ran D&D Campaigns post on the Against the Wicked City blog, here's one for Thomas Cole. An early 19th-century American landscape artist, most associated with the Hudson River School, Cole also painted European ruins (while traveling), historical & biblical scenes, allegories and fantastic landscapes.

As DM, Cole would start the first level PCs with a ruined tower over a seaside cliff, the former abode of a strange wizard...

Italian Seacoast with Ruined Tower

And then onto a sturdy keep on the border of the wild lands...

Then deep into a wilderness hexcrawl...

And into the dungeons beneath the ruins of a castle built by a mad demigod...

Ruins of Kenilworth Castle

In search of stolen artifacts hidden in a mountain with a white plume of smoke...

Mount Aetna

Against the giants...

Titan's Goblet

And finally on to the other planes of existence...

Youth

Ruined Tower by Cole

Click on the picture to see it in larger form

     
      I found this painting yesterday and couldn't help but think of the ruined tower of Zenopus along the sea cliffs of Portown. It's "Italian Seacoast with Ruined Tower" by Thomas Cole, 1838. Cole is more well known for his American landscapes, being considered the founder of the Hudson River School, but also painted European ones after traveling there.

Caves of Chaos (2005) by Michael Komarck

     The above image was posted on the Acaeum today by darkseraphim; it's a 2005 painting by Michael Komarck titled "Caves of Chaos (2005)", which I like. I hadn't seen the painting before, nor heard of the artist. His website indicates that it is an interior illustration for the 3.5E Players Handbook II, and that prints are available for purchase:

http://komarckart.com/bk_int14.html

     In some ways the style of the landscape/clouds reminds me of "The Fountain of Vaucluse" (1841) by Thomas Cole,  which Wizard in a Bottle posted last fall as a "Keep on the Borderlands inspirational painting" (it shows a keep on a rocky plateau). The two pics could be used together to illustrate a more mountainous/rocky Keep and CoC.

I also just noticed that Mythmere blogged about this painting by Komarck last year:
Best picture from WOTC

Interior Illustration for the D&D rulebook Players Handbook II.