Dragon Warrior monsters cross stitch 34: Axe Knight

You could call this guy the third “boss” of Dragon Warrior. I continue to put the word “boss” in quotes because these guys aren’t like your standard video game bosses. They show up in a designated place and impede your progress, but there’s nothing special about them in this game. They’re just standard monsters who show up at a designated location and have to be defeated to acquire something or go somewhere¹. This dude guards the Erdrick’s Armor in the ruined town of Hauksness.

He suffers the same lack of definition that plagues the Drollmagi and Wizard. He should be two different shades of gray, but in most cases he just looks like a big gray blob.

For reasons not entirely understood by me, this guy presented more problems than any previous monster in the series. At some point I missed a stitch or added an extra stitch that threw off my counts and led to a cascade of failure. I had to remove his entire left chest, his belt, his belt buckle, his little skirt (which I screwed up a second time in the process), and one of his legs. Furthermore, these two shades of gray seem to be the most tangle-prone colors of floss I own. Every time I work with them I end up with an inordinate number of knots. I’m naming this fellow Charlie. As in Charlie Foxtrot.

¹ The remake of Dragon Quest for the Super Famicom, a game that was never released stateside, did increase their stats. You’d still run into the same monsters later, but they were slightly weaker than the special encounters.

Colors used (DMC)

• 169 – Light Pewter
• 310 – Black
• 321 – Christmas Red
• 647 – Medium Beaver Gray
• 3842 – Dark Wedgwood
• 3846 – Light Bright Turquoise
• BLANC – White