Just finished this commission for a golden dragon construct from a friend of mine.
This was a ton of fun to work on, both as a test for lighting and metal textures, as well as that i never usually get to draw proper dragons. I’ feel like i’ve improved a lot working on this and i’m amazed with myself for getting to much texture out of just a single brush. That aside i’m really happy with how this came out from concept to completion.
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Quintessence is the most elusive and greatest of the elements that make up the world, exclusively found in the deepest parts of the planet and hidden reaches of the heavens. Those who can master its use find that it greatly augments magic in many different ways, allowing acts of pure creation or immense power, but always at great cost. Humanoids can’t handle using it long term, quickly becoming afflicted with terrible sicknesses, burns, and incurable organ failure that may even preclude magical resurrection. Rarely however, someone survives its use and instead mutates into something else, the quintessence almost seeming to have its own mind that supplants the original thoughts, irreversibly changing the person to something else.
A somewhat safer use of quintessence is to craft it into construct minions, as the infection seems to happen primarily through the active use of the material. The long term impacts of even being around quintessence are still unknown, but so long as you don’t attempt to harness its power directly you’re largely safe from its worst effects. Constructs created of quintessence gain incredible powers themselves, though channelling that energy is even destructive to the material the quintessence must be bound to.
A moderately stable quintessence construct known as the soldier has been developed, using the powerful element to reshape its body to better suit different combat needs. Their exact shape and weapons will vary based on the creator, but the most common form is a humanoid frame crafted from wood, bone, or metal, with plates of silvery quintessence attached to this frame. The quintessence flows and reshapes to the soldier’s needs, growing additional limbs, thickening to heavy plates that protect the construct, or glowing with incredible heat. In order to prevent the quintessence from being harvested from the body of the construct if it is damaged beyond use, the quintessence can be overcharged with energy to cause it to all detonate in a deadly explosion upon the construct’s destruction, obliterating all remaining quintessence and hopefully the enemy that overcame the construct.
Originally from the 3.5 Monster Manual V. I wrote largely entirely new fluff for the soldier, as the original monster it’s associated with is one that’s not OGL compliant (the mind flayer. It’s a mind flayer monster). This week will have a few more quintessence constructs and the terrible result of too much quintessence contact. This post came out a week ago on my Patreon. If you want to get access to all my monster conversions early, as well as a spot on the Paper and Dice Discord server, consider backing me there!
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