Russ Nicholson: an appreciation

Some years ago I made an off-hand remark that the fantasy world I would create would be a "slipstream version of Middle-Earth and the world of Firetop Mountain, illustrated by Russ Nicholson".

The mention of Russ Nicholson, who died this month, was not casual. Nicholson was one of the most important, distinctive, and influential of modern fantasy and gaming illustrators. Where writers and game designers described imaginary worlds, Nicholson visualized them, and in the process made them vivid, distinct, and memorable.

As an illustrator, Nicholson's line-work was extraordinary—dense and kinetic. He was incapable of creating a boring or static scene. As you flick through a now-tattered copy of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, you see swirls of smoke, lantern light, debris, decoration, rags, and finery. There was an element of Celtic craft and Medieval illuminated manuscripts in his work, in the whorls of dragon-smoke and the patterning and stitching of leather armor, that suggested depth and richness and danger. The fantasy underworld was an ancient world, trapped in darkness and flickering lamplight, but also filled with treasure, craft, and strangeness.

Consider these ORCS at their grog:

They're ragged, down-trodden in their patched armour and cloaks, Bored soldiers assigned to an unwelcome duty on the threshold of the labyrinth. But they're also sly (one of them is pouring from his more drunken mate's tankard), scarred-looking, and dangerous even in their stupor. They’re neither muscular savages nor hulking brutes. These are creatures of the underworld, characters, guards briefly caught off-guard.

Or who could forget this GHOUL:

The rags and decaying flesh, the sunken, desperate eyes, the hand reaching out of the dark. The detail, the sense of sudden motion, exaggerated the horror.

There’s much more of course, from the density of the city-scapes and crowd scenes in Blacksand to the preternatural beauty of the “houri” character class for White Dwarf magazine. And yet always, as in Beowulf Beastslayer, his fluid and intricate line reflected the craftsmanship of these magical worlds.

If you want to make a full fictional world work, you need to describe it. And for me, that means to see it first, and deep down Russ Nicholson remains one of the artists who let us see things, in line and motion and texture, for the first time.

Hwaet! Review of Beowulf Beastslayer by Jonathan Green

The early Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, in particular The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, had a strong influence on both my gaming and my reading. Up until Firetop Mountain, I preferred science-fiction, and while the gamebook made it easier for me to imagine role-playing as a hobby, it also suggested fantasy as a genre, which lead me eventually to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien, as a scholar and writer, studied and taught Old English, and so by a curious confluence we find, years later, a gamebook based on the Old English epic poem Beowulf, and if you throw in illustrations by the inimitable Russ Nicholson, there's really no reason to resist.

Beowulf Beastslayer, by Jonathan Green, is the most fun and interest I've had in a gamebook since finishing Steve Jackson's magisterial Sorcery! series decades ago. Perhaps the reason Beowulf Beastslayer is so engaging is that by going back to the Old English heroic sources, Green is able to make the world of the gamebook fresh and fantastical again. The first time you read The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, orcs and trolls and ghouls and skeletons and underground mazes are new and intriguing; but after a while the tropes and inhabitants of the fantasy world become familiar, and therefore less exciting. Translating the Old English world-view and poem into gameable format refreshes the experience by creating that sense of the unfamiliar again. Monsters like Grendel, giants, sea serpents, even dragons take on a new immediacy. Riddles based on Anglo-Saxon sources present a new challenge.

To his credit, Green also adapts the Old English alliterative verse to his prose sections, which makes each passage of the gamebook poetic and even evocative of the sense of the source poem. The passages that one would usually skim to find the next fight or choice point are also a pleasure to read. And, the gamebook uses kennings – compact poetic figures from the period – as progress markers and resources: another evocative turn that makes each achievement more memorable.

Green uses the ACE system for the gamebook series, adapted from the original Fighting Fantasy rules, where the ACE scores Agility, Combat, and Endurance are used in a familiar fashion with standard dice, and includes a Hero Points score which functions much like Luck. It's a familiar and highly workable system, although if you're familiar with Fighting Fantasy in general, it's pretty clear where you should allocate your character points for maximum effect, and, if a criticism can be made of the mechanics, I've never felt in much danger during a fight, or worried greatly about missing a roll.

This, on the other hand, could be intentional. With the earning and spending of Hero Points to overcome key challenges in the book, and initiative providing a bonus in a fight, the best option is always to act like a big-darn hero. This is fun, but also, from the perspective of someone familiar with the Old English heroic mode, sort of educational. Playing the heroic values of Anglo-Saxon epics – bravery, boastfulness, generosity, cunning – is a way to immerse yourself in the mindset as well as win the best outcome.

In early 2021, Green also launched Heorot, a kickstarter campaign for role-playing in the world of Beowulf Beastslayer, based on the same rules as used in the gamebook. Given the ease and simplicity of the system, and the potential of the setting (with the chance that it could even fit Tolkien's view of Middle-earth), I'm following this project with great interest.