King Varian Wrynn Charging into Battle — Print & Oil Painting

A hand comes at the viewer out of the lower right corner and it is the largest object in the picture. The gauntlet is open, foreshortened hard, and drawn deliberately out of scale with the head behind it, so the whole figure appears to be arriving faster than the canvas can accommodate. Everything else has been arranged to get out of its way.

The armour is blue enamel and gold banding, cut into broad clean panels with no ornament to speak of, except at the right shoulder where a grey lion's head has been cast in full relief with the mane worked in overlapping locks. A red cape lifts behind him and fills the middle of the frame, and it is the only soft material anywhere on him.

The sword is behind and to the left, held back for the swing rather than forward, and it carries a single hot orange stone at the crossguard that throws a small glow onto the blade and onto the cape beside it. That gem is the only warm point on the figure and the sky at the right picks up the same colour.

The face is caught mid-shout with the brows down and the teeth showing, the brown hair pulled back and blowing forward across the cheek. Behind him the ground is pale grey scree with a rider and two or three small foot soldiers picked out in the middle distance, painted at a fraction of his detail.

He died running at something. On a black shore in front of a tomb, with the retreat already sounding and the fleet loading, he stayed at the gate to hold the pursuit long enough for the rest of his army to reach the ships, which is a decision that only works once. The gem in this painting is the whole sword, merged and lit; the next time it appears in the story somebody else is holding it. Part of our World of Warcraft collection, beside the same king soaked and bloodied with a blade in each hand and the son he left behind, standing amid battle banners.