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Blair Earl Reynolds (January 11, 1962 – August 12, 2021)https://www.andersonmortuary.com/obituaries/blair-reynolds was a fantasy artist and writer whose work appeared in various
tabletop role-playing game A tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG or TRPG), also known as a pen-and-paper role-playing game, is a kind of role-playing game (RPG) in which the participants describe their characters' actions through speech and sometimes movements. Participants d ...
s and periodicals.


Early life

Blair Reynolds was born in
Ames, Iowa Ames () is a city in Story County, Iowa, United States, located approximately north of Des Moines, Iowa, Des Moines in central Iowa. It is the home of Iowa State University (ISU). According to the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, Ames ha ...
to James and Carrie Reynolds. He studied photography at college, but moved to
University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou or MU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri, United States. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Univers ...
, where he graduated with a degree in pharmaceuticals and became a certified pharmaceutical technician. While attending university, Blair and some acquaintances started up a publishing company, with Blair providing the illustrations.


''The Unspeakable Oath''

When Reynolds was 26,
John Tynes John Scott Tynes (born 1971) is an American writer best known for his work on role-playing games such as ''Unknown Armies'', ''Delta Green'', ''Puppetland'', and for his company, Tynes Cowan Corporation. Under its imprint, Pagan Publishing, Tyne ...
founded
Pagan Publishing Pagan Publishing is a role-playing game publishing company founded by John Scott Tynes in 1990. It began by publishing a '' Call of Cthulhu'' role-playing game fanzine, '' The Unspeakable Oath''. In 1994, the company moved from Columbia, Missouri ...
in 1990 as a vehicle for material related generally to the works of H.P. Lovecraft, and specifically to the horror role-playing game '' Call of Cthulhu''. The company's first publication was the photocopied digest-sized fanzine ''
The Unspeakable Oath ''The Unspeakable Oath'' is a game magazine that was published by Pagan Publishing from 1990 to 2001, and later by Arc Dream Publishing starting in 2010. History John Tynes founded Pagan Publishing in 1990 in Columbia, Missouri with a volunteer s ...
'', and Reynolds provided the black & white cover art as well as some of the interior art. As the magazine developed into a professionally printed magazine, Reynolds continued to produce the cover art, which reviewer
Allen Varney Allen Varney (born 1958) is an American writer and game designer. Varney has produced numerous books, role-playing game supplements, technical manuals, articles, reviews, columns, and stories, as well as the fantasy novel ''Cast of Fate'' ( TSR, ...
called "unsettling". In Issues #2 and #4 of ''The Unspeakable Oath'', Reynolds also contributed the first two installments of a serial graphic novel, "Remnant". Reynolds also contributed a written piece to Issue #4 (December 1991), "From the Investigative Journals of Mikhail Aksakov", but it was his cover art that was notable, featuring a
topless Toplessness refers to the state in which a woman's breasts, including her areolas and nipples, are exposed, especially in a public place or in a visual medium. The male equivalent is known as barechestedness. Social norms around toplessness ...
multi-armed female god. In 1994, editor John Tynes commented that frontal nudity at the time was "a real taboo in gaming". Despite this, Pagan Publishing did not suffer any serious repercussions. However, there were repercussions the following year when Pagan Publishing released ''Courting Madness'', an anthology of pieces from ''The Unspeakable Oath''. The cover art by Reynolds featured a nude
Rubenesque Sir Peter Paul Rubens ( ; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat. He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens' highly charged compositions reference erudite aspects of clas ...
woman who seemed to be engaging sexual acts with a
Cthulhu Mythos The Cthulhu Mythos is a mythopoeia and a shared fictional universe, originating in the works of American Horror fiction, horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. The term was coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent and protégé of Lovecraft, t ...
creature.
TSR, Inc. TSR, Inc. was an American game publishing company, best known as the original publisher of '' Dungeons & Dragons'' (''D&D''). Its earliest incarnation, Tactical Studies Rules, was founded in October 1973 by Gary Gygax and Don Kaye. Gygax had bee ...
, which at the time owned the popular
Gencon Gen Con is the largest tabletop game convention in North America by both attendance and number of events. It features traditional pen-and-paper, board, and card games, including role-playing games, miniatures wargames, live action role-playing ...
annual gaming convention, banned Pagan Publishing from selling copies of the anthology at Gencon 25.


Games 208

Reynolds also did art for Digest Group Publications, but when the company began to fail, they paid some contributors, including Reynolds, either late or not at all. This exacerbated the discontent that Reynolds was beginning to feel about the games industry, which he felt was limiting his ability to explore the erotic and perverse boundaries of the Cthulhu mythos. In 1994, he stopped providing artwork and prose to industry publications in order to focus on his own personal projects via his own company, Games 208. Reynolds wanted to publish edgy Cthulhu mythos materials, and the first work was the sexually explicit horror graphic novel ''Black Sands'' (1996). However, that was the last publication of Games 308 until ''The Mysteries of Mesoamerica'' appeared in 2008.


Return to games industry

Following the publication of ''Black Sands'', Reynolds returned to the games industry to illustrate ''The Unspeakable Oath'', now a professionally printed full-sized and full-colour publication. Reynolds also found work illustrating various pieces for '' MegaTraveller'' by
Games Designers Workshop Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) was a wargame and role-playing game publisher from 1973 to 1996. Many of their games are now carried by other publishers. History Game Designers' Workshop was originally established June 22, 1973. The founding me ...
, and '' Blue Planet'' (1997) by
Biohazard Games Biohazard Games is a company located in Columbia, Missouri that publishes role-playing games, most of them designed by Jeff Barber and Jim Heivilin. The company tends to work closely with Fantasy Flight Games. History Many Biohazard employees o ...
. He also provided artwork for Pagan Publishing's ''Call of Cthulhu'' campaign ''The Realm of Shadows'' (1997), which elicited special comment from reviewer
Ray Winninger Ray Winninger is a game designer who has worked on a number of roleplaying games, including the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' fantasy roleplaying game. He is the former Executive Producer for the Wizards of the Coast ''Dungeons & Dragons'' studio. Care ...
, who called his reaction to the illustrations "a uniquely Lovecraftian and unsettling experience the first time I flipped through this booklet ..I stumbled over Reynolds' drawings of horrifying ghouls and monstrosities, all executed in the same photorealistic style." When Pagan Publishing released a new present-day military setting for ''Call of Cthulhu'' called ''
Delta Green ''Delta Green'' is a contemporary era setting for the ''Call of Cthulhu'' role-playing game created by Adam Scott Glancy, Dennis Detwiller, and John Scott Tynes, a.k.a. the Delta Green Partnership, of the Seattle gaming house Pagan Publishi ...
'', Reynolds provided the sexually explicit story "Operation Looking Glass" for the companion fiction anthology ''Delta Green: Alien Intelligence'' (1998), and created the cover art for the sourcebook ''Delta Green: Countdown'' (1999).


Personal life

Reynolds had met Toni Warner in Missouri when they were both teens. Thirty years later, after Reynolds had settled in
Mesa, Arizona Mesa ( ) is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States. The population was 504,258 at the 2020 census. It is the List of municipalities in Arizona, third-most populous city in Arizona, after Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona, T ...
, he reconnected with Toni, and they were married in 2013. Reynolds had lived with a heart defect since childhood, but it became more serious later in life, and he died on August 12, 2021 aged 59.


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Reynolds, Blair 1962 births 2021 deaths American role-playing game artists