Operation: Stink Lizard is a "go"!!!
Nerd By Northwest #367 - "Chemical Warfare"
(Click on the image to see the full-size version)
Enter the giant skunk!
I was having a hard time figuring out how to draw the skunk that Naya conjured (refer to previous strip #366) spraying his funk, given that even a giant, pony-sized skunk would only come up to knee level to a frost giant. But then as I'm scrolling through pictures of skunks I come across some photos of spotted skunks doing this:
So artistic problem solved! We didn't have skunks where I grew up in Alaska, so that handstand thing was completely new to me. And while silly looking and certainly not as intimidating as, say, a dragon, seeing a strange mammal approaching you butt first while doing a handstand should be enough of a clue to have any halfway intelligent person to think, "Uh-uh, Nope!" and find somewhere else to be.
Now to delve deep into D&D nerdery, the female dragon (the one on the top) mentions how the frost giant doesn't look quite right. Well, the reason is that dragons have something called 'blindsight', which for practical purposes works something like a bat's echolocation or Daredevil's sensory superpower. And since the frost giant illusion has no tangible 'substance', when a dragon gets close enough they'd see the illusion with sight but their blindsight wouldn't sense anything. I imagined it'd be a bit like seeing someone who is semi-transparent or hazy. But white dragons are the dumbest of all the dragons, so it still worked long enough for the giant skunk to get close.
And yes, I know that having eyelashes on the female dragon doesn't exactly fit with the pictures in the D&D Monster Manual (from any edition). But I wanted an easy way to distinguish the two dragons. And hey, the movie "Shrek" wasn't afraid to put eyelashes on their lady dragon so I think I'm in good company.
But I'm not drawing lips on the dragon. That's where I draw the line. 😏
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