Smoky torches? Check. Worn stairs? Check. Black-mawed doors? Check. Inexplicable carvings? Check. Vapors of a worrisome nature? Check and check.
Nothing more exciting than a good dungeoncrawl.
Note, too, how the central figures are dwarfed by the enigma of the locale. They could be anybody. They could be you.
Which way will you turn?
I’m sticking along the wall and heading to the doorway on the left.
Very cool picture…
I’ve really been impressed with the art you’ve gotten. Bravo.
“Vapors of a worrisome nature?”
Really. You’ve passed on a perfect opportunity to use the highly-Gygaxian word “mephitic”. As penance for your error, I sentence you to read 175 pages of Clark Ashton Smith’s or Jack Vance’s writing. That should prove an effacious rehabilitant.
(“Effacious rehabilitant?” Perhaps I’ve been reading too much Vance lately…)
See, ya have to be careful: You call ’em mephitic too soon and the players know they should be avoiding it. You save that up for the point where they stick their heads into it on the off-chance these might be like those healing vapors back in the Cavern of the Diaphonously Clad Nymph… that’s when you reveal the cloying, mephitic stench filling their nostrils (and the save vs. polymorph).
Nevertheless, I accept your penalty as the reward which it is. 😉
Left. Always left.