The Sword of Shannara, and, later, The Elfstones of Shannara, and the Wishsong of Shannara were my favorite fantasy works as a teenage Rush/D&D/LedZeppelin/Fantasy-lover.
For some reason, this illustration by The Brothers Hildebrandt (Grimm?) from the original release of The Sword of Shannara, is the most memorable. Only years later, did I realize that subtlety, chiaroscuro, and expressionistic force likely gave this its impact.
I want to believe that the dragon dagger attack motion in Runescape was inspired by this work. Runescape, btw, somehow bridged the gap between Euro-gaming-techno-culture and American-swords-and-sorcery-geekdom like no other MMORPG has been able to do (or wanted to do) thus far.
Link: Shannara.
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