Sorry Town, USA · Dragon Warrior monsters

Dragon Warrior monsters

A Slime approaches!

In January of 2008 I embarked on a quest to recreate each of the 40 monsters in the NES game Dragon Warrior in cross stitch. At first I was just going to make a Slime. This did not take me very long to complete — the stitches being few in number. Having cut a piece of fabric in quarters, I still had three more sections of fabric to work with. So, I thought I might make a Drakee, or some other such mascot creature. Somehow — honestly I don’t remember the chain of logic that I followed — I decided not to just make 2 or 4 monsters, but 40.

Dragon Warrior has always occupied a special place in my gaming heart. I’ve only ever finished the first one, and that was almost 20 years ago (20 years!). I think I was aware of the second game in that vague, nebulous sense that 11 year olds were aware of game releases by way of Nintendo Power. My love for the series, however, is in no way proportional to the time I’ve spent playing the games. And it’s all the Slime’s fault.

I don’t remember what I thought of the Slime when I first played Dragon Warrior back in the day. He’s an underwhelming first foe — which only makes your would-be hero seem all that more pathetic in the start of his adventure — but oh so charming. He stuck with me and I’ve remembered him fondly all these years.

Courage and wit have served thee well

Each of these monsters has been stitched on 11 count Aida fabric. They average 3 to 3 1/2 inches in size. While the original sprites don’t have black borders I decided to add them to my stitching. As I’m using white fabric several of the monsters wouldn’t show up at all (the Skeletons) or just be difficult to pick out details (the Magician’s hands). I’m also stitching the white bits in white thread, even though the fabric would show through just fine. It adds a bit of shimmer, particularly to the aforementioned Skeleton.