Wednesday 9 February 2011

The N'luss - the feared "Dragon-Warriors"

N'luss Warrior, in "medium" armour

N'luss Warrior, in light armour

The N'luss are barbarians who stand some 2.15m to 2.3m tall, compared to the average Tsolyani Male at 1.68m. That is around 7' to 7'-6" compared to 5'-6".

I knew that they were tall but I never realized just how tall until Jeff drew these pictures with the comparison silhouette.

Jorge Gonzalez

Here is a Real World "N'luss": Jorge Gonzalez, a professional wrestler until he passed away last year.

In battle they would have large oval shields which they bear as protection from enemy missiles. These they discard before combat - a piece of the fluff that has always bothered me because I felt the shields would get underfoot. Now, having seen the size of their two-handed swords in proportion to a regular Tsolyani, I can see that this wouldn't be the case. They would need a substantial interval to either side in order to wield their weapons so there would be ample room to discard their shields and not impede the advance of their fellows following on behind.

8 comments:

  1. Awesome illustrations. I never realized how freaking huge those guys are...

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  2. More awesome pics by Jeff Dee! I too was surprised that N'lüss were that tall, especially in light of Trínesh and Nethté Drékka' brief romance in Prince of Skulls.

    Either our favorite Tsölyani warrior of the Red Mountain Clan is well equipped or size truly doesn't matter.

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  3. These are beautiful illustrations! Jeff Dee delivers.

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  4. The height difference was a surprise for me as well. Having said that, the "average" Tsolyani is 5'-6" and not all N'luss are going to be 7'6" either!

    School Master: I don't think we know the height for either of those characters from Flamesong, and the female N'luss are shorter than the males, as well.

    Jeff is doing some drawings of female N'luss at the moment.

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  5. Awesome work from Jeff Dee (as always). The silhouette for comparison really drives home how big these guys are.

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  6. Very nice illustrations. Bravo. Thank you for the comparisons. We have a N'luss player in our online campaign:

    http://www.wegfansite.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?69-Tekumel-Dreams-Of-A-Petal-Throne

    and this has definitely helped us visualize his size in comparison to the other characters.

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