Evolution of the Undead Unicorn

Very briefly, (or so I assumed when I began writing this) I thought it would be interesting to show the evolution of the Undead Unicorn graphic within Wyvern. For those who aren't aware, the Undead Unicorn is a creature that I created for the Forgotten Oak chapel. I was a novice that wanted to expand on the limited number of undead monsters the game provided me with and so I came up with something I thought I could make with my limited microsoft paint skills. However, I ended up really liking the idea as it added great significance to the plot in that it allowed me to show just how devastating the effect of losing the magical life giving Oak tree was to the area.

You see, the tree dying had an extreme negative effect. All the magic it had pumped into the area suddenly turned dark in reaction to the Oak dying a painful death as it slowly burned. As such, all plant life died, the blood that soaked into the soil was preserved, (which lead to the strange looking terrain you see now) and the dead were reanimated. In order to show how really awful this was, I felt that it worked perfectly to have dead Unicorns reanimated into an undead fiend as a Unicorn is a symbol of purity and light and to be defiled by becoming an undead thing for anyone is an extremely vile evil. However, Unicorns are normally protected from this kind of perversion and so it is a big deal (in my mind) for Undead Unicorns to exist anywhere.

Anyway, I originally gave the regular Unicorn graphic Zombie skin and added faded wounds. Why exactly the hooves and the tail/mane also turned green I do not know. Looking at it in the first time in ages, I realize that I should've gotten rid of any hair, blackened the hooves, and turned the body green while adding ridges to show that the fur had fallen off and you were just seeing rotted skin. However, I apparently was not thinking back then and so players got stuck with this oddball.

Later on, Legolas suggested that the Undead Unicorn be drawn as a skeleton and I thought it was a great idea. So I created the 3rd graphic you see at the top of this post. Here I basically copy, pasted, and very slightly tweaked the Dracolich ribcage and placed it over the Zombie Unicorn graphic. Then I used the colors on the Arch Dracolich's claws for the hooves and finally, I drew bones over the pre-exiting template. When I was done with that, I just removed the green bits. If you zoom in you can see how poorly put together the leg bones were, but I am not artist so it's amazing to me that I was able to make it at all.

Later still, a quirky little paper bag (aka Abbess) came along and said she would redraw the Undead Unicorn for me after I was having a discussion with players about the quality of the skeleton version I had created. Being an amazingly talented artist, she came up with the final graphic. The tail bone looks better, the legs aren't odd looking, and the bones in general have a smoother feel to them. All in all, it's great and I am quite pleased that someone that knew what they were doing was able to take my mangled junk and perfect it.

Unfortunately, Undead Unicorns stopped being in the game awhile ago as I began cutting away at Forgotten Oak in an attempt to improve upon the quality of the original maps. As such I ended up deciding to make a multi-map version of the large rectangular map that previously existed for the village. However, I only made one of those replacement maps and the Undead Unicorns would've been in a part of the village that I didn't feel like making at the time. Of course, I'll get around to it one day, but until then Abbess' version shall live on here... for all four of you to enjoy.