"As you approach the fantastic castle on the final leg of your journey, suddenly a ghostly figure manifests before you. Clouded in smoke, radiating power, menace and mystery, a unearthly handsome, heavily muscled man is watching you piercingly. What do you do?"

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I'm a pen & paper fantasy role playing gamer. This image I had in mind virtually the moment I've seen this shot [link] of Will, done by sitamae [link] . He's awesome. She's awesome. Check them out.

In pen & paper role playing, I like to put my players "in res medias", that's to say in the thick of things, to start a game. This could illustrate such a beginning of a game: The players start on a road, on a seemingly boring journey to the castle of a noble. When I'd read the above description to them, they will be forced to decide on their actions in face of unclear circumstances. This gets them involved in the game immediately while at the same time giving a strong sense of the fantastic.

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Done with GIMP.

Background by flordelys-stock [link] .

Smoke by David Ebert of purdue.edu [link] .

Will by sitamae [link] .

Stiamae gave me special permission to use this photograph of Will's and I must insist that it is not stock! For the same reason, I can't put this picture under a creative commons license as most of my other pictures are. I'm sure you understand.