Pathfinder Battles Preview: Devils of the Sea

Friday, May 17, 2013

The Skull & Shackles Adventure Path features a lot of "proper" devils from the Hells, but it also features a LOT of SEA devils. While these aquatic menaces are not lawful evil outsiders proper, their sharp teeth and evil looks make the name fit quite well. WizKids did a great job translating these creatures into prepainted plastic for the Skull & Shackles set of Pathfinder Battles figures, and I'm thrilled to show them all to you today.

As we continue to do these sets, it becomes more and more clear to me that I should take the opportunity to do as many of the same type of creature at the same time that I can. That way, similar creatures look "of a kind" to one another because they're based on unified art, and are often sculpted by the same sculptor. Likewise, all similar figures are painted based on paint masters painted by the same artist (in this case the excellent Chris Hart, who also did all the masters for the Shattered Star and Rise of the Runelords sets.

Here's an early look at three of those paint masters for the Skull & Shackles set!

Here we have the Sea Devil, a common rank-and-file member of this hideous undersea race. Watch out for his trident. It's pokey. This is a Medium common figure.

Liven up the ranks of your Sea Devil invasion force with this Sea Devil Champion, also Medium and also common.

Every invasion force needs a leader, and in this case we've got The Matron, one of the greatest figures in the Pathfinder Battles line according to yours truly and all the folks here at Paizo who have seen it. Chris really did a great job on the painting for her, and you guys are going to freak when you have her in hand. This Large figure is slated at the rare rarity.

That's it for this week. Set up an ongoing Pathfinder Battles subscription today to make sure you don't miss a single figure! The full set is slated to release this summer!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Strange Cargo

Friday, May 10, 2013

The summer release of Pathfinder Battles: Skull & Shackles is just over the horizon. Already you can hear the sea shanties of pirate crews carried on the salt-saturated air, and was that a shark fin that passed by just now? We've previewed almost half of the 55-figure set so far here on the Paizo Blog, and excitement is building for what is shaping up to be one of our best Pathfinder Battles sets yet! Designed to support the popular Skull & Shackles Adventure Path, the set includes creatures encountered in that campaign as well as aquatic and pirate-themed figures usable in any fantasy adventure.

This week I want to show off some of the set's stranger figures in the form of three unusual passengers we think will add a lot to your sea voyages.

A long ocean voyage is going to require a lot of food to feed the crew, and who better to provide that provender than Ambrose Kroop, "star" cook to pirates, smugglers, and heroes alike? Over the course of several sets, it's our intention to provide all sorts of "menial" NPCs, from barkeepers to bouncers to barmaids, from watch captains to politicians. When I first saw the art for Ambrose Kroop come through during the course of publishing the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path campaign, I just knew I had to include him in a set. Ambrose Kroop is an uncommon figure.

And what do you think the "mystery meat" is on the tenth week at sea? Why, bilge rats, of course! Here we have a Rat Swarm ready to eat your feet or feed your belly in case things get desperate. We've put the rats on a Small base and made them a common figure so it'll be easy to build up enough to have a reasonably sized rat horde.

Here we have the menacing Gilbrok the Tongue, a chief lieutenant of one of the Adventure Path's key villains. When I saw the illustration for this character, I added it to the list for this set as a sort of challenge to our partners at WizKids, because I honestly wasn't sure they'd be able to pull off such a complex sculpt. You can't quite appreciate all of the detail from the tiny photograph above, but you're going to have to trust me that, in terms of complexity, this is one of the most elaborate figures we've done to date. He's got a glowing spell effect in clear plastic coming off his right hand and a monkey witch familiar on his shoulder. His staff is, for lack of a better term, "very three-dimensional," and his windswept robes had to be captured just perfectly. He'll work great for any crazed hermit, rowdy druid, gross witch, or just plain old weirdo you need for your campaigns. That said, we know you won't need a ton of him, which is why we made him a rare figure.

That's it for this week! Come on back next week for a look at three more figures from the Skull & Shackles set! And if you haven't seen them yet, check out the upcoming Pathfinder Battles releases White Dragon Evolution and We Be Goblins!, also coming this summer from Paizo and WizKids! Set up an ongoing Pathfinder Battles subscription today to get discounts on Encounter Packs and make sure you don't miss a single figure!

Until next week,

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Big Fish

Friday, May 3, 2013

We're so deep in a state of relief here at Paizo after shipping all of our August/Gen Con releases to the printer this afternoon that I almost forgot to write this week's Pathfinder Battles preview blog! And since we certainly can't have that going into a gorgeous weekend filled with lots of stuff OTHER THAN work (for the first time in months!), I thought I'd take a few minutes to reveal some more cool minis from this summer's upcoming Skull & Shackles set of prepainted plastic fantasy miniatures!

Up first we have the Cyclops, a monocular giant whose folk once controlled a vast kingdom not far from the Shackles Isles. I have a soft spot for this particular monster, as I featured a Cyclops in my Pathfinder Tales free webfiction story, "Two Pieces of Tarnished Silver". I've long awaited the chance to bring our version of the Cyclops to Pathfinder Battles, and since cyclopes feature prominently in the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path, this set was my best chance. A Large figure, the Cyclops is slated at the uncommon rarity.

Several weeks ago we revealed Selissa, an off-size Medium Aquatic Naga NPC from the Skull & Shackles campaign. Fans of correctly-sized monsters will be pleased to learn that this set also includes a regular Large-sized Aquatic Naga, ready to terrorize the waterways of your campaign. This figure is an uncommon.

And last up this week we have the Sea Cat, a venerable monster of fantasy all dolled up in a shiny new Pathfinder version. Sea Cats are among my favorite aquatic monsters, and I'm thrilled to finally bring them to prepainted plastic. Like the Cyclops and the Aquatic Naga, the Sea Cat is also slated at the Uncommon rarity.

And that's it for this week. At long last the sun is shining down on Seattle, and I'm headed out of the office to do almost anything other than work. I hope your weekend is as fun as the one I'm planning to have!

It's not too late to set up an ongoing subscription to make sure you don't miss a single Pathfinder Battles release!

See you next week! I'll be the one with the suntan!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: The Devil in the Details

Friday, April 26, 2013

Today is a crazy busy day at Paizo, as the entire staff works to finalize the last little details of nearly a dozen books, all within a week of being shipped off to the printer so that we can get them to you in time for Gen Con Indy in August. It's our last chance to make sure these books are absolutely perfect in every detail. As a celebration of our meticulous, lawful activities, I've decided to dedicate today's Pathfinder Battles preview blog to devils.

The Skull & Shackles Adventure Path includes plenty of lawful evil fiends, especially in the later installments when the devil-binding nation of Cheliax enters the fray to do battle with the player characters. As such, the Skull & Shackles set of Pathfinder Battles figures contains a nice handful of devils ready for use on your tabletop.

Up first this week is the hated Sentinel Devil, a barbed inhabitant of the Nine Hells tasked with guarding the plane's most deadly prisoners. From time to time, wicked spellcasters summon Sentinel Devils to the Material Plane, where they make great adversaries (and effective guardians). The Sentinel Devil is a common figure.

Here we have the Greater Host Devil, first introduced in Book of the Damned Volume 1: Princes of Darkness. These warlike devils are tasked with retrieving souls for their infernal masters in the court of Hell, and when they venture into the Material Plane, they generally do so in large numbers. Accordingly, we've slated the Greater Host Devil in the common rarity.

What is there to say about the Drowning Devil, first introduced in Pathfinder 60: From Hell's Heart, the stunning conclusion to the Skull& Shackles campaign? Weighing in at 600 pounds, this CR 8 fiend freely travels the waterways of Hell, spreading infernal designs as far as Golarion and beyond. A truly stunning figure in one of the most garish paint schemes imaginable, this guy definitely calls attention to himself as a fearful foe. Just like bees and venomous snakes, you've got to watch out for the bright-colored ones. The Drowning Devil is on the Large side of Large, and he's slated at the uncommon rarity.

And with that, I've got to get back to work on our Gen Con releases before the project management devils here at Paizo pull me away into a lake of fire!

The Skull & Shackles set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted plastic figures releases this summer. Set up an ongoing subscription today to make sure you don't miss a single figure!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: A "Huge" Announcement

Friday, April 19, 2013

This week we interrupt our usual schedule of previews for the upcoming Skull & Shackles set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted fantasy miniatures to bring you an update on exciting Pathfinder Battles developments related to other product releases.

Ever since our second set, Rise of the Runelords, we've been working with WizKids to find a better solution for releasing Huge miniatures into the Pathfinder Battles line. Releasing figures this large as part of a normal set previously involved two different kinds of booster boxes, which was confusing to both customers and retailers. We knew we needed a better solution.

Today we're announcing a release that we believe is a step toward a better solution for Huges in the form of a new Encounter Pack entitled White Dragon Evolution. This new non-random boxed set is scheduled for a summer release, and will include THREE original white dragon sculpts!

Up first we have the Medium White Dragon, perfect for a low-level end boss or mid-level minion. Based on art created for the Pathfinder Bestiary Box by Paizo favorite (and PaizoCon 2013 Special Guest) Ben Wootten! This Medium White Dragon may seem small compared to his larger brothers in the White Dragon Evolution set, but I assure you he's so awesome it'll freeze your blood.

Here we have the next step in a dragon's life cycle, the Large White Dragon! This all-new sculpt is also based on a Ben Wootten illustration, and it really pushes the upper end of the Large scale, giving you more mini for your money.

This friendly fellow was originally sculpted for inclusion in the Rise of the Runelords set, and is based on Wayne Reynolds's cover illustration for Pathfinder Adventure Path #5: Sins of the Saviors. We're thrilled to finally bring this Huge figure to you, and I can't wait to see what you think when you have it in hand. I think it's one of the best sculpts we've done to date.

More "Evolution" Encounter Packs will be announced in the next few months, showing additional creatures at multiple sizes. We also plan to release additional Huge figures in the Encounter Pack boxed set format based around themes rather than a single creature presented three different ways. Stay tuned to this space for more news as it develops.

Several weeks ago I mentioned that we forgot to photograph two figures from June's We Be Goblins! Builder Series set. Well, the production samples for this set arrived at the Paizo offices this week, so they're finally ready for their big debut. This guy above, the Goblin Commando on Goblin Dog, is ready to tear into your campaign (and into your player characters).

And last we have the lowly Goblin Dog, a verminous pet kept by goblins in lieu of actual dogs, whom goblins hate with unparalleled passion. Both of these figures are at the common rarity.

And that's it for this week! Join us here next week as we once again set sail into the dangerous waters of the Skull & Shackles set!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Shoot 'em Up!

Friday, March 28, 2013

With its piratical theme, the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path is a perfect campaign for gamers looking to add a little gunplay to their fantasy. This summer's Skull & Shackles Pathfinder Battles miniatures set therefore includes a few pistol-packing figures that will help you bring your black powder fantasies to life on the tabletop.

Guns are controversial in fantasy gaming, so you won't see a TON of them in this set (or in the campaign itself, if you don't want ‘em), but they are a great thematic match for pirates on the high seas, so we couldn't resist including at least a few of them here.

Up first is our very favorite gun-wielder, Lirianne, the iconic gunslinger we first introduced back in Ultimate Combat. Lirianne has an incredible amount of detail sculpted into her outfit, and her costume motifs bring a hint of the Old West to the High Seas. This Medium figure is slated at the rare rarity.

Here we have Tsadok Goldtooth, the first mate of Kerdak Bonefist, Hurricane King of the Shackles Isles and probably the toughest pirate lord of the southern seas. Old Tsadok here is a half-orc in a fine coat with a cool pistol and a nasty snarl. Our photo accentuates the colors on this figure and makes them look a little more primary than they look with the figure in hand. The green of Tsadok's flesh, for example, matches that of other orcs and half-orcs already produced in the Pathfinder Battles line. Tsadok is an uncommon, Medium figure.

And last up this week is the Hurricane King himself, Kerdak Bonefist! Take a close look at that pistol hand, folks. Let's just say Mr. Bonefist earned his last name the hard way. This Medium, rare figure is absolutely phenomenal in hand, easily one of the best in the set and one of the most finely detailed and well painted Pathfinder Battles miniatures to date.

Our partners at WizKids continue to outdo themselves with every aspect of these miniatures, from sculpt to paint application. I'm amazed every time they bring new figures to the office, which has been happening at an almost weekly pace lately. (For example, we're half-way through approving sculpts for the NEXT set, and have seen all but about three figures in this one).

What I'm trying to say is that it's a great time to be a prepainted figure collector, and it's a great time to be collecting Pathfinder Battles! Now I'm off to go shoot a gun into the air in wild celebration of awesome miniatures.

See you next week!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Grindy High, Grindylow

Friday, March 22, 2013

This week I'm in Las Vegas for the GAMA Trade Show, an annual meeting of game manufacturers and retailers wherein game publishers show off their new stuff, hatch massive conspiracies with one another, and work with retailers to be better partners in getting our cool game products into the hands of consumers. This year's show has been a wonderful experience, and over the last few days I've spoken with hundreds of retailers with questions, comments, and criticisms about Paizo's products. That's meant a lot of chatting about the Pathfinder Battles miniatures, and I'm pleased to report that the word from folks here is that customers are really loving our figures. The trade show has been an educational experience, and it's convinced me that the next few years are going to be even more exciting for Pathfinder fans than the last few!

And while I've been away from the office, the Pathfinder Battles forces have been marshaling some amazing new figures from the upcoming Skull & Shackles set, scheduled for a summer 2013 release!

This week I'd like to show off three of these neat new minis, the insidious (and probably a little leaky) grindylows!

Grindylows play an important role in the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path, as they make great aquatic adversaries for low-level characters. Without the risk of spoilers, I think it's fair to say that your players will be seeing a lot of these guys over the course of the campaign.

With heads and upper bodies that resemble those of goblins and bottom halves more reminiscent of a greasy octopus, grindylows aren't actually goblins, but their teeth and crazy culture make them just as lovable.

But don't take my word for it. Have a look for yourself!

This little critter is the Grindylow, a rank-and-file warrior of his undersea race. Armed with a coral-studded poker and ready to bite your hand off, the Grindylow is a Small figure. Because you'll want a good number of this guy, we've slated him at the common rarity.

Here we have the evil Brinebrood Queen, an appalling grindylow matriarch. You'd better hope she's not pointing at you, because wherever she commands, a swarm of grindylows is likely soon to be!

This figure has a great sculpt and looks amazing in hand (especially the tentacles along her bottom half). She is a Small creature at the rare rarity.

And here we have The Whale, a genetic throwback to a primeval era in which grindylows could grow to any size. Grindylows like The Whale never quite stop growing, and can eventually reach size Huge. This charming gentleman is "merely" Large, and makes a great centerpiece to any grindylow-themed encounter. The Whale is a rare figure.

And that's it for this week. Stay tuned to this space next week for more piratical and aquatic beasties from the upcoming Skull & Shackles set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted figures!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: A Motley Crew

Friday, March 15, 2013

WizKids secret agents have been making multiple weekly trips to Paizo these days, and each time they show up they have a chest full of pirate's treasure. Ok, that's not true, but for nerds like me it's pretty close. In fact they've been bringing over the latest paint masters for figures in this summer's Skull & Shackles set of Pathfinder Battles miniatures, and man, they shine like the brightest gold to these old pirate eyes!

The new set supports the popular Skull & Shackles Adventure Path, and provides a host of creatures that have never before appeared in prepainted plastic (many of which, I might add, came from suggestions from the Pathfinder faithful—so keep those requests coming!). This week I present a motley, more or less random assortment of figures from the set.

Up first is Selissa, a young aquatic naga pushed into the "civilized" lands of the Shackles isles by unusually dry conditions in her usual river habitats. That means she's hungry and desperate, and ready to bite a chunk of refreshing meat from your player characters.

Selissa is an interesting figure because she's size Medium, one step smaller than standard aquatic nagas. One of the cool things about basing these sets on actual characters from actual adventures is that it gives us a chance to do some oddball figures that maybe wouldn't make sense in a more "generic" set.

The figure looks amazing in hand, with vibrant blues and greens and an aquatic shine that adds an extra layer of creepiness.

"But she's the wrong size!" some might exclaim. "Why didn't you include a Large aquatic naga in the set?"

To which I'd reply. "She's the right size for Selissa, and a cool figure to boot. You'll just have to wait a bit longer to see the Large version that's ALSO in this set!"

Up next we have a classic creature of fantasy gaming that to my knowledge has never before been produced in prepainted plastic. We call this Large abomination Shimerae, and in the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path she's the beloved pet (and convenient poison source) for a nasty alchemist.

In the real world, she's an amazing, amazing miniature that I can't wait to throw up against my hated enemies (by which I mean my players).

But it wouldn't be a proper Skull & Shackles preview without a kick-ass pirate, and this week we've got a baddy who you really don't want to run into on the open sea. I give you Arronax Endymion, Lord of Hell Harbor and renegade former commander of the Fourth Fleet of Imperial Cheliax. That didn't turn out for him, and now he ranks among the most powerful pirate lords of the Shackles Isles.

I think he also makes a nice sub for any kind of naval officer or player character with a naval background. By the time we're done with this set, you'll be able to pair him up with tons of different pirate lords OR team him up with Chelish naval officers, all of whom will be sailing into view in the coming weeks.

You can make sure you get all of these figures by setting up an Ongoing Pathfinder Battles Subscription today!

The set is scheduled for a summer release, so start getting your sea legs. There's a long and exciting voyage ahead!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: At Last, the Goblin Mystic!

Friday, March 1, 2013

Way back when we first announced Heroes & Monsters, the very first Pathfinder Battles prepainted fantasy miniatures set, we knew we needed to include Pathfinder goblins from the very start. It’s an open secret that about half of that set was already in development at WizKids when we got involved, and a lot of the specifically Pathfinder creatures came relatively late in the process. Some of the figures, such as the Human Rogue and Orc Brute bear an uncanny resemblance to classic Mage Knight figures from the first era of prepainted plastic miniatures, whereas others like Seelah and the Ogre were more or less direct ports of Pathfinder art to miniature form.

The Goblin Warrior and Goblin Hero figures are examples of miniatures directly inspired by Pathfinder art, but what only some of the most astute Pathfinder Battles observers remember is that Heroes & Monsters was originally to include a third goblin, the mysterious Goblin Mystic.

Here’s the weird tale about how that miniature failed to happen the first time, and how we finally got a chance to bring him out with the upcoming We Be Goblins Builder Series set due in stores in late May.

The original Goblin Mystic was a port from an existing WizKids sculpt, modified slightly so that it better matched the Pathfinder goblin art. The original sculpt featured a goblin sitting cross-legged on a floating flying carpet. This was problematic because flying carpets in Pathfinder are not appropriate treasure for most goblins. Worse, the original sculpt was much, much taller than a Pathfinder goblin, so the Goblin Mystic was as tall sitting down as our regular goblins were standing up, which wasn’t something we could fix without scrapping the entire sculpt.

We decided to try to make it work anyway, and when we sent WizKids reference art for the only real “goblin mystic” that we had—the antagonist goblin druid Vorka from the original We Be Goblins! adventure, I’m afraid things went from bad to worse. The original sculpt was still way too big, only this time she was wearing a big dumb Gandalf hat on top of all the other problems.

Ultimately, we decided we couldn’t make things work in time, and that the poor old Goblin Mystic would need to wait for a future set.

I’m pleased to report that the We Be Goblins Builder Series set offers us the perfect opportunity to reintroduce a “goblin mystic” to the Pathfinder Battles line, only this time without the troublesome flying carpet and at the correct scale.

And we decided to cut through the earlier problems by actually making the goblin mystic Vorka herself, rather than a freakishly tall monster simply wearing Vorka’s hat.

So here she is in all her glory, the goblin villain Vorka!

In addition to new friends like Vorka and her goblin player character adversaries from both the original We Be Goblins! adventure and Free RPG Day 2013’s We Be Goblins Too!, the new We Be Goblins Builder Series set includes repaints of classic Pathfinder Battles sculpts like this major bad boy, the Goblin Warchief!

This upper-tier goblin villain comes with his very own riding lizard and a massive hate-on for the player characters. He’s based on the Warchief Ripnugget figure from Rise of the Runelords, with a unique new paint scheme.

There are two more We Be Goblins figures left to preview, but a mix-up here at the office sent them to the factory before we had a chance to take good pictures of them.

Instead, next week we’ll have to content ourselves with preview images of jaw-droppers from the very next full set, which we’ll announce here on paizo.com early next week!

A double dose of Pathfinder Battles news? AMAZING!

You guys are going to explode when you see the figures from the next set.

Set your internal spontaneous combustion engines to next week. You are all about to go BOOM!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: I Drop the Bomb on You

Friday, February 22, 2013

I'm back in the office after a week and a half in the blissful tropical paradise of Hawaii (with a busted computer, no less), and that means work must commence. The Spice must flow. And Pathfinder Battles Previews must continue!

And because I missed last week's update, this week is a double dose of goblin greatness, brought to you by yours truly and the fine folks over at WizKids, who continue to set new standards with sculpts and painting on our prepainted Pathfinder Battles figures. This week we've got four more figures from the We Be Goblins! Builder Series set. Each figure is packed in a randomly assorted single-figure blind box for the low price of $2.49, making it easier than ever to assemble your very own goblin horde!

We've already previewed four figures from the set on previous Fridays, which leaves four more for upcoming weeks. But I've got to churn through them FAST, because we are at the very doorstep of the announcement of the very next full set. WizKids brought the first round of paint masters for THAT by the office this week, and they are better than anything we've seen from them before. But that's getting ahead of myself. Onward my goblin soldiers!

Up first is the Goblin Warrior, a repainted version of our very first goblin figure from the original Heroes & Monsters set. This figure is almost sold out on the secondary market, and has been commanding some pretty crazy prices, which is one reason we wanted to bring him out again and give gamers another shot at him. You can never have too many mooks, after all.

Here we have the repainted Goblin Commando, originally from the Rise of the Runelords set. With his mighty horsechopper in hand, this little guy is ready to terrorize your campaigns!

Speaking of terrifying, is there anything scarier than a goblin in a wedding dress wearing a wig of beautiful blonde hair? How about the same goblin, with a bow and arrow? We added this feature to the figure because the original illustration didn't have a weapon, and we thought she was scarier this way. And also awesomer (did you know publishers get to use fake words without consequence?).

And here we have the titular bomb from the name of this week's blog. Why, it's Mogmurch the goblin alchemist, complete with a cool skull helmet and an even cooler olde tyme bomb ready to go off in his hand. Or at the feet of your player characters!

Mogmurch and Reta are playable characters in We Be Goblins Too!, this year's Paizo offering for Free RPG Day! That promotion takes place at game stores all around the world on June 15th. The We Be Goblins Builder Series set is scheduled for a May 29 release.

See you next week!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Goblins on the March!

Friday, February 8, 2013

Here I am on Day 3 of my vacation in Maui, and naturally my computer has helpfully broken on me. I think that poor thing needed a vacation more than I did, and it's part of a psy-ops move to convince me NOT TO WORK on my vacation. Silly computer, it's 2013, man. I can blog from my iPhone!

So let's talk about goblins, even if briefly (to protect my vacationing thumbs).

May sees the release of the new Pathfinder Battles Builder Series We Be Goblins set, a collection of 12 goblin minis sold in a blind-packed, single-figure packages. The release is timed to coincide with Free RPG Day (June 15th), and our cool new free adventure, We Be Goblins Too!

That adventure (which you can get free at participating game retailers) features the same four goblin player characters we introduced in the original We Be Goblins adventure, and all four are included as brand new sculpts in this new Pathfinder Battles set.

Goblin player characters such as this fine gentleman, Mister Chuffy Lickwound!

In addition to five new sculpts like Chuffy, the We Be Goblins Builder Series set also includes exclusive repainted goblins from previous Pathfinder Battles sets, such as this Goblin Hero, originally from the first set, Heroes & Monsters.

Goblins from early sets like the Goblin Hero have been very popular on the secondary market, and they're starting to get pretty expensive. With a single-figure We Be Goblins pack selling for $2.49, figures like the Goblin Hero offer an affordable way to build up your goblin hordes!

And that's it for me. Back to the salt mines of tropical forests and black sand beaches. I'll find a way to preview two more figures next week, ideally with a computer fully recharged and healed with the spirit of aloha!

Erik Mona
Publisher
Wailuku, Hawaii

Pathfinder Battles Preview: We Be Goblins!

Friday, February 1, 2013

Ever since we introduced the little buggers way back in Pathfinder Adventure Path #1, the lowly goblin has become a sort of mascot for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. With several new attributes like hatred of dogs, fear of horses, and a delightful penchant for singing (and a fresh new visual design from superstar artist Wayne Reynolds), Pathfinder goblins are a great symbol of what we're trying to accomplish with Pathfinder in general—providing new and exciting spins on classic elements of fantasy and sword & sorcery.

As far as Pathfinder goes, it doesn't get much more classic than goblins. Since their first appearance, we've introduced ways to play goblin player characters, stuffed goblins, goblin t-shirts, and more.

We've also produced several goblin miniatures for the Pathfinder Battles line. All of them have been extremely popular with gamers and collectors, and despite most of them being commons, the goblins have been the highest-demand figures we've produced to date. And they're not going to last forever.

Enter the Pathfinder Battles Builder Series We Be Goblins set, a new product format from WizKids designed to help you build your goblin hordes quickly and affordably. Each display box contains 24 blind-bagged randomly assorted single-figure packs, each with its own goblin miniature. With 12 figures in the set, each display box is designed to provide a complete set—and then some! Individual packs retail for $2.49, and are scheduled for release on May 29, 2013, just in time for use with our just-announced Free RPG Day Pathfinder Module, We Be Goblins, Too!, which comes out June 15th as part of the worldwide Free RPG Day promotion.

Additional Builder Series sets are in the planning stages, and we hope to have a couple more out by the end of 2013. Folks with a Pathfinder Battles Ongoing Subscription can use their Encounter Pack discount codes on display boxes of the We Be Goblins set (they are not part of the automatic case subscription, and will need to be ordered separately).

The We Be Goblins Builder Series set contains five all-new sculpts in addition to repainted versions of seven previously released favorites, and I've got to say I think they're some of the best goblins we've seen from WizKids yet! I'll reveal two figures a week for the next few weeks, starting right now!

First up this week is the Goblin Warchanter, who first appeared in the Rise of the Runelords set. This warbling warrior doesn't appreciate your cruel words about the ineffectiveness of bards, and she's eager to show you the error of your ways with her nasty whip. Look out! The Goblin Warchanter has a brand new paint job, and she's looking forward to keeping your growing goblin army in line!

Last up today we have the almighty Poog of Zarongel, a frightening little cleric of the goblin god of dog-killing, fire, and most holy mounted combat. Poor Poog is not very good at mounted combat and he has yet to kill his first dog, but he's a very, very effective pyromaniac. His boon companion, the frog "Dogfinder," rests atop his bald pate. Poog is a player character in both the original We Be Goblins adventure and this year's exciting sequel, We Be Goblins, Too!, both written by the demented genius Richard Pett.

That's it for me this week! I hope you're all enjoying opening your new Shattered Star figures, and that you enjoy looking at and playing with your new figures as much as we enjoyed making them.

In the meantime, we've approved more than 50 sculpts for upcoming releases over the last couple of weeks, and we'll soon move beyond goblins to get into some juicy reveals from upcoming full sets!

Next week I'm out of the office for a much-needed vacation to Hawaii, but I plan to pre-load the next couple of preview blogs so you guys can enjoy goblin goodness in my absence.

Mahalo!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: The Gang's (Almost) All Here!

Friday, January 25, 2013

The brand-new Shattered Star set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted plastic figures officially released on Wednesday of this week, and reactions from those lucky enough to have received them already have been very positive!

Speaking personally for a moment, I always love that tipping point where all of the hard work we've put into a Pathfinder Battles set finally gets shared for real with you guys, so that you can see exactly what we've been so excited about week after week here at Paizo, as we work with WizKids to make Pathfinder Battles the coolest line of prepainted plastic gaming figures available. Hearing your comments (and your criticisms, too!) makes us feel like all that hard work was really worth it, and the back-and-forth definitely makes each Pathfinder Battles release even stronger than its predecessors. I can't thank you enough for the interest and support you've shown our line since the very first day we announced it.

You guys are awesome!

Here at Paizo HQ, we've been crazy busy finishing up Ultimate Campaign so it can go to the printer in a couple of weeks, launching the Reign of Winter Adventure Path, finalizing Visions of WAR: The Art of Wayne Reynolds, designing and finalizing the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, and hatching schemes for 2014 and beyond.

All of that effort has put a huge burden on our art department, who are trying like mad to stay on top of all of our projects as we catch up from the holiday break and ramp up to make sure all of our big summer releases come out on schedule.

That means that while I'd intended to celebrate the release of the hattered Star set with a complete reveal of high-quality photos of every figure that previously had to settle for iPhone shots taken at my desk, in fact it's taking the art team longer than anticipated to clean up all of the images, and I won't be able to show off all of them just yet.

I think we'll simply plug the photos missing after this blog into each figure's individual product page, rather than making a big to-do out of it here in the Friday preview. This space is better used for revealing cool, exciting figures you don't already own, after all, so I only want to stretch this out as long as necessary.

(At this point I should also add that the art team is ALSO cleaning up and finalizing photos of some brand new figures from an upcoming release we have not yet announced, so next week we're ready for some awesome new reveals anyway.)

But before that happens, let's take a final look at some of the Shattered Star figures you've probably only seen sitting on my desk, in early computer render form, or under some other less-than-optimal condition. (Assuming you're not currently holding them in your hand, of course.)

Here we have Koriah Azmeren, complete with a cool glowing sword just like in the Wayne Reynolds image that inspired her. Koriah has been around Pathfinder for a long time, first appearing as an author of the Pathfinder Chronicles in Into the Darklands, an early Pathfinder product written by our own James Jacobs. She's an amazing figure, from the sculpt to the paint details, and we absolutely love her. Koriah is rare figure.

Next up is Xin, the legendary founder of Thassilon, precursor to the dreaded Runelords! This guy has been lurking around Varisia for more than 10,000 years, and when the PCs finally catch up with him I think it's fair to say he probably looks rather different than this, his "original" appearance (for how he looks today, see another figure in this set, though spoilers prevent me from saying which one!). This is one of those figures that works great as a specific NPC as well as a stand-in for just about any kind of diabolical high-level wizard you need to throw at your player characters. Xin is a rare figure.

Speaking of the insidious Runelords, up next we have Runelord Sorshen, who makes a surprising appearance in the Shattered Star Adventure Path. When combined with Runelord Karzoug, we've now released two of the seven Runelords, covering the sins of greed and lust. Perhaps future Pathfinder Battles releases will allow you to complete the set! Runelord Sorshen is a rare figure.

Most of you likely recognize our next figure, the lovable Lem, Halfling Bard! Lem is our "iconic" bard, and has appeared in Pathfinder products ever since he graced the covers of Curse of the Crimson Throne, our second-ever Pathfinder Adventure Path! (As a bit of trivia, Lem gets his name from Lemmy, the lead singer of the heavy metal band Motörhead, on account of their similar sideburns.) Lem is a rare figure.

Here's another figure with roots that go back to Curse of the Crimson Throne. That campaign introduced the Gray Maidens, an all-female order of knights from the city of Korvosa. Eva Widerman's original armor concept for these warriors was so cool we put it on the back cover of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook. When it came time to revisit certain Varisian themes in the Shattered Star Adventure Path, we knew we wanted to revisit this iconic group. Here we have Oriana, a Gray Maiden Commander, with Eva's original costume design filtered through Wayne Reynolds. We think this rare figure looks awesome!

Let's move on to some monsters, shall we? Here we have the Medium Air Elemental, a common figure cast in clear plastic and touched up with some white highlights. Getting the colors right on this guy took several rounds of approvals, but I'm pleased with how he finally turned out. It's always been a major goal of mine to produce elementals at all the sizes in the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary, and the Shattered Star set covers us for Medium and Large versions of the core four elemental types.

Speaking of which, the set also includes this Large Air Elemental, who frankly pushes the boundaries of a Large figure and starts hedging into quasi-Huge territory. An actual Huge will have to wait for a future set (as will the Smalls), but as I said above, Shattered Star certainly sets us off on a great start.

Last up this week we've got the enormous Troll Champion, which is one of my favorite figures in the entire set. This guy REALLY pushes the limit of a Large figure, and he absolutely is as large as we envision trolls ever getting. Yes, he towers over even some giants we've already released, but this guy is a CHAMPION. An upcoming set will feature another type of troll that's more in line with what we consider a "regular" troll to be, size-wise. Our original Troll, in Heroes & Monsters, was a bit too small. This guy is a bit too large (on purpose, because he's so awesome). More trolls soon!

And that's it! By my count that leaves four figures remaining for high-quality photos (the Grub Swarm, Glass Golem, Natalya Vancaskerkin, and Sheila Heidmarch). We'll sneak them onto their respective singles pages later this week, clearing the docket for something genuinely new next week.

Until then, I hope you enjoy opening and admiring your new Shattered Star figures as much as we've enjoyed creating them for you!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Rounding Third, Heading for Home

Friday, January 18, 2013

We’re less than a week away from the January 23rd official release date for the Shattered Star set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted fantasy figures! But with all the crazy Kickstarter stuff going on over the last month, we’ve still got a few figures left to reveal from the set.

So without further ado, let’s jump right into it!

Here we have Portioque, a wily subterranean wizard who likes to hang out with his buddy, Caedimus. Like that erstwhile companion, Portioque is a common figure.

The ancient Runelords of Thassilon often employed clockwork servants, and this Clockwork Soldier, culled straight from the pages of Bestiary 3 makes a compelling member of an ancient Thassilonian fighting force. He’s also at the common rarity, so you can work up a whole party of them to menace your player characters.

And here we have the Tower Girl, a cunning rogue from an all-girl gang that plays an important role in the first adventure of the Shattered Star Adventure Path, Shards of Sin. She’s common as well, and also makes a nice double for a player character rogue.

Here’s another ancient underground dweller we like to call a Xulgath. This guy is also common, which would be a problem if he smelled as bad as his Pathfinder RPG counterpart, but which is awesome for building whole hordes of anthropomorphic subterranean lizard people. Wait until you see the paint detail on this guy’s scales. You won’t believe he’s a common, but he is!

Here we have a Cleric of Zon-Kuthon, who appears in the Adventure Path as a not-altogether-unfriendly evil cleric named Gein Kafog. We knew we wanted to depict this cleric with a chain weapon, which can be very difficult with plastic miniatures. Our compromise was to wrap much of the chain around his body, which certainly fits in well with a follower of a god dedicated to pain. The Cleric of Zon-Kuthon is at the uncommon rarity.

This slavering spiderlike critter is a Shriezyx, a horrific aberration cooked up by the ancient Runelords. A bunch of them still dwell in the city of Magnimar (and their stats appear in Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Magnimar, City of Monuments). It’s probably difficult to tell from this photo, but I assure you that the face on this little bugger is GROSS. This Medium figure is at the uncommon rarity.

Believe it or not, there’s an old elf under this evil-looking armor. I’d tell you whether your Shattered Star players will consider him a friend or foe, but that’s spoiler territory. Suffice it to say that Ardathanatus, a rare figure, works great as any kind of black-armored figure you might need in any campaign. And he’s got a huge axe, too!

Last up this week we’ve got Sheila Heidmarch, the Venture-Captain of the Pathfinder Society’s lodge in the city of Magnimar and a patron to the player characters throughout the Shattered Star Adventure Path. With a design based on a cover illustration by Wayne Reynolds and a history that goes deep into the history of Pathfinder products, this is a fun figure I’m happy to include in the set not only because it’s beautiful, but because it will work great for just about any female spellcaster you might need. Sheila is a rare figure.

That’s it for this week. Next week the set will actually be out and you’ll be able to view the figures yourselves. I’ll do one more Shattered Star blog with high-quality images a few more figures that changed paint schemes late in the set (and hence still need to be photographed here at Paizo HQ), as well as quality images of a few figures from much earlier that had to make do with my shoddy iPhone camera shots for one reason or another.

And then it’s time to start talking about the NEXT set. And the one after that. And the one after that, and the one after that, and the one…

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Pathfinder Online Promo Figures

Friday, January 11, 2013

The big Pathfinder Online Kickstarter Campaign wraps up this upcoming Monday, so before we head out for the weekend, I wanted to interrupt our normal Pathfinder Battles preview schedule to give a look not just at the seven figures we’ve already revealed, but also the two remaining figures that are likely to be unlocked this weekend as we push toward the project’s ambitious $1,000,000 funding goal.

Please take some time to visit the Pathfinder Online Kickstarter page for more details on which pledge levels receive the promotional minis. There are several options available to match several levels of support.

Stats for these creatures will appear in the giant Emerald Spire Superdungeon that is also a part of this Kickstarter effort. All Pathfinder Online promo miniatures are specially created repaints of existing or upcoming Pathfinder Battles figures.

Up first we have the Bloodbriar Goblin Raider, a brutal little beastie native to the region of Thornkeep, one of Pathfinder Online’s starting towns.

Next up is the insidious Shadowfire Elemental!

Followed by the Lava Lurker!

Finishing up this sub-set’s elemental theme, we have the Mudlord!

And watch out for the Moon Spider!

I’m sad to be the first to inform you that the forests of the River Kingdoms region, where Pathfinder Online takes place, are crawling with Bugbear Snipers!

And Echo Wood Outlaws!

And now, let’s take a look at the two remaining figures, starting with the Emerald Automaton! This repaint is based off a yet-to-be-revealed figure from the Shattered Star set, which we’ll get back to next week.

And last (unless, of course, your support blows the project past $1,100,000!), we’ve got the evil Bone Priest!

And that’s it for now! Please support the Pathfinder Online Kickstarter Campaign. Your generous pledges of support not only help to create an awesome and exciting video game experience, but they’ll also net you some sweet prepainted plastic figures!

Next week we’ll get back to the business of revealing the rest of the Shattered Star set, which will finally release on January 23rd! We’re so close now, you can taste it!*

Erik Mona
Publisher

* Please refrain from licking Pathfinder Battles miniatures. It’s icky.

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Elementally, My Dear Watson

Friday, January 4, 2013

We're now less than three weeks from the January 23rd release date for the new Shattered Star set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted fantasy miniatures! So far we've revealed nearly 40 of the set's 55 figures, but a little math will tell you that from now until the release date, we've got to reveal a decent number of figures to show them all off before you can buy them yourselves in the store.

So let's go off to the races!

We've previously revealed the Medium and Large Fire Elementals, and the Medium and Large Water Elementals. This week, it's time to reveal two more elementals, leaving only two more for future previews.

First up we have the Medium Earth Elemental, a rocky bruiser erupting from the ground to smash some hurt onto the heads of your player characters. Painted in dark browns and grays and with glowing red eyes, this figure is a pretty typical example of its kind. Cool green crystal formations along his arms give the Medium Earth Elemental a distinctive look. The whole figure is sculpted in clear plastic because we originally wanted to leave the crystals completely clear, or slightly greenish tinted to match the colors on the original art for this creature, which first appeared in the Bestiary Box. Much to our surprise, versions of the figure featuring a pearlescent coat of green paint over the crystals actually looked much better than the clear plastic, so as in the case with some of the other elementals, we decided to go with paint over clear plastic. This surprised me (I thought we'd prefer clear), but in this case a huge consensus of Paizonians agreed that the painted crystals simply looked better.

But all was not lost for lovers of clear plastic! We used the mold for the Medium Earth Elemental as the basis for the Lava Lurker figure that's part of the ongoing Pathfinder Online Kickstarter Campaign. That figure is very much clear, with red tints that make him look like, well, he lurks in lava.

Bigger is often better, and that adage is certainly true when it comes to earth elementals! Behold the Large Earth Elemental, a dude you definitely don't want pounding you into the dirt (but whom you may wish to summon to pound someone else!). The coloration on this figure is very similar to his Medium counterpart, only at a size pushing the very top of Large, he's significantly more intimidating. I love this figure's wide jaw and expressive face. You can almost hear him shouting "IT'S CLOBBERIN' TIME!"

The Medium elementals in this set are at the common rarity, while the Larges are rares.

I'm going to hold on to the Large and Medium Air Elementals until a future preview. They are also awesome, but I don't want to over-elementalize you guys in one sitting. I'll leave that for when you open your own boxes of the Shattered Star set and start assembling your own elemental armies!

Instead, let's take a look at two more Large figures from the Shattered Star set!

Up next we have the Glass Golem, a figure with such a complex paint scheme that it was one of the very last to be completed (and thus my cruddy iPhone photo will have to suffice for the moment). As the Shining Child from the Rise of the Runelords set and this set's elementals have taught us, "clear" figures are among the trickiest to get right in the painting stage.

Simply casting the figures in clear plastic never works, as important sculpt details vanish without proper shading. Painting over the clear plastic completely has proven to be the correct option in a few cases, but it always seems like a bit of a disappointment and a copout. The best solution, as Goldilocks certainly knew, was to get the paint balance JUUUUUST RIGHT. In the case of the Glass Golem, we wanted not just a neat clear effect, but something that actually looks like glass. After several tries, we finally got the balance right.

Last up this week is the cantankerous Fire Giant, a mean old brute ready to hack you apart with his crude sword. Thanks to drybrushing (and a little bit of clear plastic peeking through here and there), this guy looks like he burns with an inner fire. His face and fiery beard are very expressive, and will make him stand out among his other giant kin.

That's it for this week! Next week we'll take a look at some more key NPCs from the Shattered Star Adventure Path!

Also next week, we'll reveal additional details about a special convention-season promotional repaint goblin figure that we'll be distributing throughout 2013! Backers of the Pathfinder Online Kickstarter Campaign at the Goblin Squad level and above will get a certificate to receive this figure FREE at Gen Con. So come on back and check it out, this is definitely a figure you will not want to miss!

See you in seven days!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: The Dog Days of Winter

Friday, December 21, 2012

Kyra and Seoni face off against this week's featured foes!

We're less than a month from the formal release of the Shattered Star set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted miniatures! Here in the Paizo offices, things are very, very quiet, as it seems just about everyone but me remembered to take the day off to have a continuous holiday between Christmas and New Year's Day. Well, my mistake is your reward, as all this silence in the office during the "Winter Break" has given me more than enough time to whip up a brand new Pathfinder Battles Preview Blog!

And since it's been a while since I've been able to hit my regularly scheduled deadlines for these mini reveals (and since we're running out of time before you'll have the figures in your hands yourselves), I want to make today's reveal a doozy.

Four figures this week, five if you include the latest repaint reveal for Goblinworks' Pathfinder Online Kickstarter Campaign, but more on that later.

First up this week, we've got a couple of dogs. Not dogs in terms of bad miniatures, of course, but dogs in terms of canine critters for your Pathfinder RPG enjoyment. Now, I've been collecting prepainted plastic miniatures for years, and if there's one thing I feel like I've got a lot of, it's dogs and wolves and various canines of all types and sizes. I don't really need more dogs, so if we wanted to include them (for whatever reason) in Pathfinder Battles, I knew they needed to be really, really special. I think these two figures ably fit the bill.

First up we have the Shadow Hound, a nasty evil outsider who appears in Bestiary 3 under a slightly more specific name. I'm not sure if the photo does full justice to this guy. He's got a base coat of black with some gray highlights that really pull out a lot of details for such a dark miniature. Gray fingernails and bright red eyes sell the ferociousness of this clever canine, and at the common rarity you'll easily be able to assemble a pack of them to threaten your player characters.

Speaking of hounds, what RPG campaign would be complete without a pack of fire-breathing flame dogs from the pits of Hell? Our Hell Hound (also at the common rarity) is a truly remarkable figure, sculpted in clear plastic and painted in tones of red, orange, and yellow that combine with the clear to give a true burning appearance. I absolutely love this sculpt, which is a requirement when dealing with a figure many players already have in one form or the other. At almost as large (or maybe even a bit larger) than a human, this is one unforgettable puppy.

From the unforgettable to the never-made-before in prepainted miniature form, we turn to the Ravenous Ooze, an uncommon slimy gray pseudopod eager to digest your metal bits (including most of your treasure). I love throwing oozes at my players, but the game has relatively few appropriate for lower-level charcters. At CR 4, the Ravenous Ooze is perfect to teach PCs respect at a relatively young age. Players have been asking for this miniature since we announced the launch of Pathfinder Battles, and I am thrilled to finally deliver.

I may be mistaken, but I believe this skulking murderer has likewise never been produced in prepainted plastic. We call him the Pallid Path Cultist, and he and his brethren play an important role in the opening chapters of the Shattered Star Adventure Path. The grayish clear plastic of the Pallid Path Cultist perfectly suggests his chameleon skin ability, which allows him to blend easily into his surroundings. WizKids did a terrific job capturing the dynamic pose we first presented in Bestiary 2, and again miniatures collectors who have been looking for a guy like this for years have much reason to rejoice.

Lastly, I'd like to remind everyone that we've got a fun Pathfinder Battles miniatures component for the Pathfinder Online Kickstarter Campaign from our friends over at GoblinWorks, who are raising money for their upcoming Pathfinder-inspired MMO. Crowdforger backers will receive several special repaint figures as thanks for their support, including the Bloodbriar Goblin Raider, Lava Lurker, Shadowfire Elemental, and Mudlord! And since the campaign just passed $500,000, we've revealed the next figure to be unlocked, the Moon Spider!

Please drop by the Pathfinder Online Kickstarter Campaign project page and consider joining up! If the campaign hits its ambitious $1 Million goal, you'll receive NINE figures (and a whole bunch of other awesome stuff), and if they manage to exceed that goal, there are even cooler Pathfinder Battles rewards in store!

And that's it for this week. I wish you all a fantastic new year filled with gaming and miniature delights. Next week we'll show off even more amazing figures from the Shattered Star set, and a few weeks after that, you'll have them in your own hands!

(And then we'll start previewing images from the NEXT set, which looks INCREDIBLE!)

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Do Clockwork Kings Dream of Electric Golems?

Friday, December 21, 2012

"Loooviiing yoooouuu...is easy 'cause you're beauuuuutiful. Doo dooo doodoo. Aaaaaaiiiiiiii"

Ahem. It isn't always this easy.

The height of a freelancer's satisfaction on any given project is often mute and unheralded. When a project is finally turned over, dutifully and painstakingly crafted over the course of months, only your developer, and perhaps your long-suffering spouse, are the ones who even know. In other words, the echo of popping champagne corks isn't commonly experienced by your typical RPG designer. Since you can't say anything, by the time a project does reach the public eye, from the initial murmurs of messageboard excitement to the dramatic unveiling of the finished product, you've usually moved well beyond the groundswell, that special creative place in your brain long-since vacated and re-inhabited with new assignments. And since words are cheap and art isn't, you're often surprised to find things have changed significantly since you last saw them, adapted to fit the artist depictions that aren't always what you remember describing. So when the gaming world starts to get excited, you often have to flip through along with everyone else, read what's become of your orphaned ideas, and figure it out all over again.

But then there's that rare time in a freelancer's life, particularly when you've cultivated a great relationship with your publisher and regularly attend the same conventions, when your excitement never quite gets a chance to quell, because they keep stoking those fires that got you so excited to work on a project in the first place. Most recently, Paizo has facilitated this with a growing list of awesome tie-in products unveiled at various stages of development, most of which stand a good chance of possessing snippets of your game design. With the introduction of the Wizkids' partnership with Paizo, this opens up intriguing new possibilities to see fantastic 3-dimensional depictions of your work, something I've always wanted to experience. Which is how I remember so vividly the first time I saw the Clockwork Reliquary.

Concept artwork for the Clockwork Reliquary.

The chance to revisit Azlanti technology was the reason I immediately jumped when I saw the outline for The Dead Heart of Xin. I had set myself up for this chance years earlier in some of my first works for Paizo: From Shore to Sea, and later the Sun Temple colony in Lost Cities of Golarion. But nearly all the Azlanti devices PCs experienced in those products were dormant or malfunctioning, only providing the merest hint of the incredible power wielded by Golarion's first advanced civilization. Given the chance to see some of that stuff working as it should, all set in the hallowed halls of the palace stronghold of Rune Magic's inventor and a true master of those arcane arts? Well... I could barely contain myself.

It wasn't long after I finished crafting the adventure (and turned over a month early, at that!) that I flew to Seattle for PaizoCon 2012, and visited a recently-transplanted Daigle and the rest of the crew at the offices. As usual for a working freelancer, most talk is on upcoming projects, but James and Erik called me over for a special little surprise: the initial sketches for the Clockwork Reliquary. I had worked hard to realize James' outline notes into a terrifying mechanical monstrosity that was at once ancient and advanced. As you'll see when the adventure arrives next month, I had settled on a technological design aesthetic inspired by the skeksis architecture and weaponry from The Dark Crystal. As a result, I remember having the most trouble with headless design and top-mounted arms the outline tentatively described, as I desperately wanted to avoid a "helicopter-head" creature. I even sketched it out myself as part of my turnover in a bid to prevent that depiction, in an almost-embarrassing drawing with more spidery legs that turned out surprisingly close to the finished rendition (admittedly done well before I knew who the cover artist would be, but shown here for your snickering amusement). I was really concerned with having the BBEG of the AP invoke the same kind of mind-numbing fear when you see a really good human-versus-dragon illustration. You look at it and and wonder "how in the world could a real person even survive for a second against that thing?" Not that my sketch depicts that, but I'm not an artist, and I was trying.

Of course, it doesn't hurt when you've got the master himself—Wayne Reynolds—working toward the same goal. When I'd heard Wayne was the cover artist, I was immediately embarrassed for my presumptions to do my own sketches, and I remember sheepishly asking Wayne at PaizoCon if he'd seen that terrible thing (mercifully he had not). But even without the visual reference, words and art connected perfectly through the descriptions he'd been provided, because his pencils sent shivers up my spine in a way I'd never experienced in seeing my work realized in two-dimensions—and I've seen a lot. The gangly arms were spot-on. The stilted legs. The clawed hands. The skymetal construction. The crystal coffin. (Fun Fact: 4 arms + 3 legs=7 limbs corresponding with Seven Virtues of Rule!) Most of all I appreciated the noticeable lack of too many gears. Despite my early enthusiasm for the steampunk genre and the creature's name, I never wanted this adventure to delve into that aesthetic, and, in fact, I had tried to skip gears entirely in my early designs which called for the various joints to be bonded not quite by clockwork, but by mini-miasmas of arcane energy. You can still see a hint of that attempt in my sketch, which would allow its individual limbs to orbit its body in weird magic ball-and-socket joints and prevent my "helicopter-head" dread, and it kept with my established Azlanti-stuff-always-orbits themes. Sure, I would liked to have seen a burnt-black skeleton and a transparent-green noqual crystal as originally designed, but those concerns vanished with the way Wayne conveyed the maliciousness of a partial skeleton without eyes or flesh to work with was just perfect, and the sloping, arched-back shoulders of its four clawed arms just conveyed the terrifying power of this mechanical horror. It was so... antediluvian... so... perfect. Truly an imperial monstrosity capable of leading a clockwork army to world domination!

But there was more! I think while James and I just sort of oo-ed and ah-ed and nodded in wide-eyed unison over just how perfect the depiction was, Erik tugged on my sleeve and led me—stunned and glassy-eyed—to his office, where he revealed that not only would Wizkids and Paizo be producing an accompanying miniature line for Shattered Star, but production was well underway... AND the Clockwork Reliquary would be one of them AND... well, he showed me the initial sculpt.

Like many Paizo fans, I grew up surrounded by action figures. Now as then, I've always been fascinated by a world in miniature. Star Wars was, of course, my first introduction, but I recall my first RPG purchase was a Ral Partha beholder mini when I was only 7 or 8 years old. Hundreds more followed. Scaled down, I could lord over these tiny figures like some deranged deity, a habit I'm afraid has never subsided in adulthood, as I still have an unhealthy habit for minis. And as I'd grown up chopping up and rearranging figures into variations that matched my imagination's own ideas—I remember a Ithorian head superglued to Obi-Wan's body as a "Hammerhead-Jedi-Knight-Bounty-Hunter" being a particular favorite—seeing something I'd imagined brought into the world in 3-dimensions was always some secret passion of mine. So imagine the thrill of seeing one of your creations actualized in the real world! Here we had a hunch nestled in James' head for years, entrusted to me to flesh out and build in imaginative words, descriptions, and statistics, then passed on the an incredible artist to realize in two-dimensions, and, finally, passed on to another artist—this time a sculptor—to realize in a third. I was speechless. Just as Wayne Reynolds had realized nearly every nuance of my Clockwork Reliquary designs, so, too, did the sculptor at WizKids realize every nuance of his concept drawing. The gangly-yet-powerful skymetal frame. Those oddly hunched shoulders that reminded me of the cocked hammer of a gun ready to fire. The howling skeleton encased in super-cool transparent epoxy. Those misleadingly dainty legs. The great details of Azlanti glyphs and Thassilonian runes and the ribcage-like reservoir and the scrolls flapping in the breeze and... *gasp.* I marveled, as your PCs soon will, at the sheer power of a reborn tyrant hellbent on reclaiming a kingdom lost 100 centuries before.

Just as I'd struggled in design with the Clockwork Reliquary's size before striking the right balance, so, too, does this mini take advantage of the best of both worlds. On paper, Large didn't seem quite imposing enough, and Huge didn't seem to fit the dimensions of a cradled skeleton and the gangly, whirling-dervish agility I wanted to convey for Xin's penultimate creation. As a result of those design assumptions, this mini is by far one of the largest Larges I've ever handled, suitably imposing and towering over PCs at just under 4-inches. Since the reliquary's longer arms are about 3 inches from shoulder to claw-tip, and bent at that, I'd say this mini gets the "gangly" theme I so wanted to convey down! The internal skeleton is fairly big in relative scale, but since The Dead Heart of Xin allows you to actually witness Xin's final moments, it isn't hard to assume that maybe the old emperor was maybe under the influence of enlarge person or other arcane augmentation, or we're simply seeing the distortion of the eldritch-warped crystal coffin. This was one bad dude, so anything's possible!

So here it is, Paizo fans! The Clockwork Reliquary, finally unveiled after 10,000 years of slumber, risen from the waves and ruins of Thassilon to claim the lives of your PCs before moving onward to world domination at the head of its clockwork army! Can they stop it, or will all of Golarion once again kneel before the skymetal tyrant? Erik was right last week when he called this figure "the coolest mini in the whole set, possibly the most complex and awesome-est prepainted plastic mini ever made for any set." I couldn't agree more, and I know your wait was worth it.

The Clockwork Reliquary is the primary villain of the Shattered Star Adventure Path's final chapter, The Dead Heart of Xin, on sale next month here at Paizo.com.

Brandon Hodge
Freelancer

Pathfinder Battles Preview: OMG, It's the Wyvern

Friday, November 16, 2012

Work has been so busy lately I can hardly think straight. So here I am at 4:00 on a Friday afternoon, and I only now realized that I forgot to put together a preview blog for January's upcoming Shattered Star set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted fantasy miniatures!

I want to keep this week's preview short and sweet, and honestly the best way to do that is to focus on one of the set's sweetest miniatures: the Wyvern.

Check out this masterful miniature!

This figure is amazing. I'd place it among the 10 most impressive figures in the Shattered Star set (yes, that means there are still plenty of jaw-droppers we haven't revealed yet). Best of all, this guy is an UNCOMMON.

Watch out, horses!

And here's a nice little size comparison to show what the Wyvern looks like next to a Medium-sized figure, in this case our iconic cleric Kyra!

So yeah, there's that. This Large figure is super-cool, but there are even cooler figures coming!

And there's also big movement behind the scenes on the Pathfinder Battles front. One of the reasons I'm so tired this week is that I've spent most of my waking hours deciding on the contents of the next TWO SETS worth of miniatures for our friends at WizKids, along with more than 100 images for their sculptors to get to work on immediately.

2013 is going to be an absolutely Gargantuan year for Pathfinder Battles!

No preview blog next week, as yours truly will be enjoying turkey with family for Thanksgiving. After that, though, I promise something extra-delicious in Pathfinder Battles Preview Land!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Water, Water, Everywhere

Friday, November 9, 2012

In what seems like a first for these late fall Pathfinder Battles preview blogs, it's actually not raining outside our Washington State offices as I write this. But don't worry, I'm sure it soon will be. These last few weeks have shown us all the devastating power of nature, so I thought it might make a good occasion to show you two water-themed creatures from January's Shattered Star set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted fantasy miniatures.

I'm speaking, of course, of water elementals.

This set (and the Shattered Star Adventure Path that inspired it) features two different sizes of water elementals, the Medium Water Elemental and the Large Water Elemental. As with the Fire Elementals we've already previewed, water elementals are a staple of Pathfinder RPG play. Making miniatures of our elementals is somewhat problematic, however, as the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary features images that are not really suitable for turning into 3D figurines, and not all sizes are covered by those illustrations, anyway.

In this case, we already faced a similar problem when we put together our Pathfinder Pawns Bestiary Box collection of cardboard pawns. For that set, we enlisted one of our favorite artists, Tyler Walpole, to create brand new images for Small, Medium, and Large elementals of the four common types. I happened to be building the Pathfinder Battles Shattered Star list at the same time, so we asked Tyler to pull double duty on his assignment, creating images that would work for both Pathfinder Pawns and Pathfinder Battles figures.

While the Shattered Star set does not contain Small elementals of any type, it's probably not too big a spoiler to reveal that it does contain Medium and Large elementals of the four main types: air, earth, fire, and water.

WizKids did a great job sculpting Tyler's images into three dimensions. Here we have the Medium Water Elemental, a common figure:

As with all the elementals in this set, this guy is sculpted in clear plastic, so it looks really cool when held up to the light. The Medium Water Elemental looms over other Medium creatures, casting an imposing shadow upon his enemies.

Speaking of imposing, it's pretty hard to imagine a cooler Large Water Elemental than this:

The clear effects are more pronounced on this Large figure, which really pushes the envelope on what can be considered Large in the Pathfinder game. Even action figures would have reason to fear a drowning at this "miniature's" hands.

Don't believe me? Check out what both of these figures look like on my desk facing of against our Medium iconic fighter, Valeros. I hope he brought his swimming trunks!

That's it for this week. See you here in seven days for more cool reveals from the upcoming Shattered Star set!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: It's Raining Cats and Frogs

Friday, November 2, 2012

It’s been raining cats and dogs here in Seattle lately, so I decided to take that as inspiration for this week’s preview. And since I don’t have a great photo of the set’s two awesome canine figures yet, I’m substituting a frog-like thing instead to preserve the delicate rhyme structure of my pun.

I speak, of course, of the Boggard!

Boggards have been with Pathfinder for a long time, and finally get their due in a major way as antagonists in the second and third volumes of the Shattered Star Adventure Path. Because we put this set together well before the Shattered Star campaign was written, we actually used a piece of art from an early boggard appearance in the Kingmaker Adventure Path, but we liked him so much we figured he could play double duty for the Shattered Star miniatures set. He’s a common, so you’ll soon have plenty of Boggards in your collection to menace the swamps of your campaign world.

And since no frog is complete without its cat (did I just make that up?), here’s a look at the next cool miniature in the set, the Catfolk Rogue!

This lithe cat-burglar feautres in The Asylum Stone, by Paizo’s own James L. Sutter. The adventure takes place in Kaer Maga, Varisia’s very own wretched hive of scum and villainy, where weird creatures rub shoulders with elves, humans, and worse. Catfolk, which we first introduced in Bestiary 2 to much popular acclaim, seemed like a natural fit for that environment, and here she is, ready to pounce into your miniatures collection. The Catfolk Rogue is an uncommon figure.

Both of these animalistic figures have amazing paint details for their rarities. The Boggard is easily among the very best commons we’ve yet produced (if not the very best common) in both sculpting detail and paint application, and the Catfolk Rogue features tons of paint steps like fur stripes, skin gradient, and amazing eyes that elevate her to more than just a cat-headed lady.

We’ve now approved every figure in the set, and we’re well on our way to the Shattered Star set’s scheduled January release!

See you next week!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Cosmic Horror Halloween!

Friday, October 26, 2012

Halloween is less than a week away, so it's finally time to deliver on the cosmic horror I've been teasing for the last several weeks.

You've already seen the enormous Gug, which I've included again below since it is so awesome and fits the theme so well.

But the Gug is only one of THREE "mythos" monsters included in January's Shattered Star set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted fantasy miniatures. He happens to be the largest (by far), but he has plenty of company when it comes to monsters inspired by the writings of legendary horror author H.P. Lovecraft and his circle of author friends from the early 20th Century. Lovecraft is a bit of a patron saint as we approach Halloween (and just about every day of the year around Paizo, truth be told), and we've been incorporating creatures he imagined in the 20s and 30s into Pathfinder from the very start.

The Shattered Star set is no exception! Behold, the insidious Nightgaunt, terror of the darkened skies!

This horrifying creature came straight from Lovecraft's mind, making its most notable appearance in his epic "Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath," one of the great author's more fantastical yarns.

In the words of the master:

"Suddenly, without a warning sound in the dark, Carter felt his curved scimitar drawn stealthily out of his belt by some unseen hand. Then he heard it clatter down over the rocks below. And between him and the Milky Way he thought he saw a very terrible outline of something noxiously thin and horned and tailed and bat-winged. Other things, too, had begun to blot out patches of stars west of him, as if a flock of vague entities were flapping thickly and silently out of that inaccessible cave in the face of the precipice. Then a sort of cold rubbery arm seized his neck and something else seized his feet, and he was lifted inconsiderately up and swung about in space. Another minute and the stars were gone, and Carter knew that the night-gaunts had got him."

WizKids did a marvelous job on this figure. The sheen on its very dark blue hide looks rubbery and cold. They captured the nightgaunt's bat-wings and noxious thinness very, very well. You definitely don't want to get scooped up by these guys on some moonless Golarion night.

The nightgaunts appear in the fifth installment of the Shattered Star Adventure Path, "Into the Nightmare Rift." And I'm happy to say that they don't invade Golarion in this one, mostly because the player characters instead have to go to their vile home dimension of Leng!

Next up this week, we round out our cosmic horror with a creature created by one of Lovecraft's friends and collaborators, Frank Belknap Long. I speak of course of the legendary Hounds of Tindalos, from Long's 1931 story of the same name. The Hounds also appear in Lovecraft's "The Whisperer in Darkness," published the same year.

Belknap Long's terrifying Hounds of Tindalos dwell in the very distant past, and access the present through the angles of time to menace folk with their canine bodies and evil, hollow tongues designed for draining bodily fluids. They secrete a strange blue ichor from their hides. From the story:

"They are lean and athirst!" he shrieked... "All the evil in the universe was concentrated in their lean, hungry bodies. Or had they bodies? I saw them only for a moment, I cannot be certain." — Frank Belknap Long, "The Hounds of Tindalos"

Well, Frank, they have bodies, complete with gross backwards-bending legs and nasty claws. And they're coming your way in the Shattered Star Adventure Path!

So that's it for this week! Two terrible cosmic horrors from the depths of the mythos come to menace your campaigns.

I'd say that their incursion into your games counts as both a trick and a treat!

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Gray Days

Friday, October 19, 2012

The Halloween season is about more than just scares. Here in Seattle, the approach of Halloween means the end of nice weather and a months-long descent into "the gray," a series of cloudy, rainy, dreary days often strung together 40 or 50 at a time. It's not the dreariness that gets you, or the dampness. It's the monotony of it all. The same day, every day, for days and days and days and days (can you tell I just got back from a vacation?). But Halloween is around the corner to break up the gloom, and it does so with both tricks AND treats.

This week, I'm focusing on a couple of the "treats" in the upcoming Shattered Star set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted miniatures due to hit stores and subscribers in January. And since it's gray outside, I thought I'd stick to a "gray" theme.

Specifically, I'm talking about the Gray Maidens.

The Gray Maidens first appeared during the Curse of the Crimson Throne Adventure Path, our second-ever Pathfinder campaign. Stationed in the Varisian city of Korvosa, the Gray Maidens were the personal bodyguard of Queen Ileosa, and became heavily embroiled in the chaos and machinations that fueled that campaign.

When the Shattered Star Adventure Path set out to revisit Varisia, we knew we wanted to include the Gray Maidens from the start. We liked their design enough that we put it on the back cover of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook, after all, so it was only a matter of time before we'd revisit them in an Adventure Path.

And make prepainted miniatures of them, of course.

The figure pictured above is the rank-and-file Gray Maiden. She works perfectly in concert with the Shattered Star or Curse of the Crimson Throne campaigns, and we've put her at the uncommon rarity so it's relatively easy to build up a bunch of them. Not playing either of those Pathfinder Adventure Paths? Not to worry, this figure is cool enough to work for any female warrior in full plate, including a player character.

Speaking of character, we've had good luck so far including multiple types of the same "troop" in previous Pathfinder Battles sets, and the Shattered Star set is no exception. A squad of Gray Maidens needs leadership, so the set also includes the Gray Maiden Commander.

Pictured above is Oriana, leader of the Gray Maiden contingent encountered in the second Shattered Star adventure, "Curse of the Lady's Light". She's got some nasty scars on her face and a real chip on her shoulder, and your player characters are going to love hating her.

And what better way to focus that hate than a gorgeous prepainted figure placed right in the middle of your gaming table?

The Gray Maidens are coming your way in January, complete with the rest of the Shattered Star set. We're thrilled with the way these figures came out, and I continue to be extremely excited about the level of quality WizKids has put into this set.

But I've got days and days of gray Seattle skies ahead of me, and things are bound to get a bit gloomier between now and Halloween.

In fact, I think the horror around here is about to get downright cosmic.

Return here in seven days for unknowable horrors from the edge of the cosmos that man was never meant to experience (but which will look GREAT on your gaming table!).

Trick or treat!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Scary Monsters

Friday, October 12, 2012

It's October, and as Halloween approaches it seems appropriate to focus on some of the scarier creatures in the upcoming Shattered Star set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted fantasy miniatures!

I'm technically on vacation this week, but hey, no rest for the wicked. I can't let my personal need for a couple of days off get in the way of your personal need for more cool Pathfinder Battles previews. As a wise man once said, "the needs of the many must outweigh the needs of the few."

So, on to the spoooooooookiness!

First up this week we have an absolutely disgusting menace culled from the mind of Paizo's own James L. Sutter. A while back, when James was writing the brilliant City of Strangers: A Guide to Kaer Maga, James invented an ancient subterranean race of outsiders known as the caulborn who dwell below Varisia's most unusual city. These telepathic prophets and historians feed on the psychic energy and memories of victims, which they keep in their grossly distended heads.

The third adventure of the Shattered Star Adventure Path, The Asylum Stone, written by Mr. Sutter himself, returns to Kaer Maga, so of course the caulborn make a return appearance. And in my endless quest to ply my editorial staff with 3D representations of the fruit of their own diseased minds (and 'cause you fight 'em in the adventure), I just had to add one of them to the Shattered Star set.

Here he is, a gross miniature in this grossest of months: The Caulborn!

Next up we have an oldie but a goodie, a gruesome undead mastermind even TOUGHER than a regular lich! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the dread Mesmalatu, an undead lord so powerful that even his floating skull packs a deadly punch! And watch out for those gems in his head, or your soul might end up living in one for eternity!

Sculpted in clear plastic, from the jet of ectoplasm holding up his head to the multicolored gems encrusting it, this guy is one of the major villains of the campaign, and one your player characters won't soon forget. Mesmalatu is among the smallest miniatures in the Shattered Star set, but he's also no doubt one of the most powerful enemies we've sculpted in plastic to date.

And that's it for today! Here's hoping I scared the socks off of you (or at least impressed you a bit with two awesome miniatures).

And with that, I slip cannily back to my vacation, to return with a big pile of treats for next Friday's blog!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: The Big Blue

Friday, October 5, 2012

I'd planned to spend the next few weeks leading up to Halloween on some of the spookier figures in the upcoming Shattered Star set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted miniatures, but this week our doorbell rang here at Paizo, and our partners at WizKids delivered one of the greatest pre-Halloween treats of all in the form of the final paint master of the Gargantuan Blue Dragon, the special "case incentive" promotional figure for the set.

Here she is, in all her magic-item-bedecked glory, shown here with regular-sized Seoni the sorceress for size-comparison purposes:

What you see before you is the mighty Cadrilkasta, a wyrm blue dragon that serves as the primary nemesis of the campaign's fifth installment, "Into the Nightmare Rift".

Cadrilkasta has long haunted the skies of Varisia, scanning the countryside for signs of ancient Thassilonian ruins. So obsessed with the Runelords is Cadrilkasta that she has carved their runes into her chest, as shown in this close-up image.

In the Shattered Star Adventure Path, Cadrilkasta is encountered digging up an ancient Thassilonian ruin looking for a powerful magical artifact. Since the PCs will likely have several shards of the potent artifact that serves as the basis of the campaign by the time they meet her, it's probably safe to say that she will be just as interested in them as they are in her.

When you plop this giant figure down on the table, it'll make an encounter your player characters won't soon forget! We're still trying to straighten out Seoni, and she only just met the dragon yesterday!

As a case incentive, the Gargantuan Blue Dragon is available for purchase only to customers who preorder a Shattered Star Standard Booster Case and to ongoing Pathfinder Battles case subscribers. The figure has been produced in extremely limited quantities, so order soon to make sure that you do not miss out!

Before I go, I wanted to take a moment to talk about dragons in general, and the philosophy of how we decide which figures to include in Pathfinder Battles sets. The Gargantuan Blue is our first Gargantuan dragon, but it definitely won't be our last. When news about this figure first leaked on the internet earlier this week, some long-time miniatures collectors expressed a bit of disappointment, because they've long wanted a Gargantuan Green Dragon, which has not been produced to date by any prepainted miniature company. As a longtime collector of prepainted miniatures, I assure you that I also want a Gargantuan Green Dragon, and am working hard to include one in an upcoming set.

Cadrilkasta is an important dragon in the Shattered Star Adventure Path. Since this set is designed to support that campaign, the blue dragon made for a logical choice as the case incentive miniature. Based on an incredible Wayne Reynolds painting and sculpted with amazing detail by WizKids, we're confident that this is a super-cool dragon that you will be glad to have in your collection, even if you've already got a giant blue dragon in it from a few years back.

It's our intention to do every "true" dragon in every size category, Small, Medium, Large, Huge, and Gargantuan. We plan to be producing prepainted miniatures for years and years, and I'm confident that we'll get to all of them eventually (some, like the green, probably sooner than later). But when a set is made to support an existing Adventure Path, as many of our sets will be, it's going to provide the dragons appropriate for that campaign.

For Shattered Star, that means a Gargantuan Blue. But I assure you, the rest of them are coming!

That's it for this week (and what a week it's been!). Check back next week for a return to the originally intended spooooooky theme. I've got some stuff that will scare you out of your socks!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: The Living Dead

Friday, September 28, 2012

Last night we finished up session 35 of James Jacobs's office campaign, which has morphed into an adaptation of Gary Gygax's classic fantasy Egyptian superdungeon, Necropolis. James has done a lot to make the adventure his own, including transporting it to the nation of Osirion in the Pathfinder world, and adding several devious traps and monsters not in the original adventure.

But we're still in ancient tombs and pyramids and stuff, though, so if one thing has changed, it's that we're running into a LOT more undead these days.

Which brings me to today's preview of upcoming figures from the Shattered Star set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted plastic miniatures! The set supports the brand-new Shattered Star Adventure Path, which sets the players on a quest around Varisia to reunite an ancient artifact created by the progenitor of the Runelords. It's a sort of sequel to other Varisia-based Adventure Paths, including Rise of the Runelords, Curse of the Crimson Throne, and Second Darkness, but the campaign also stands alone as a self-contained Adventure Path.

And, truth be told, it's got a fair number of undead.

Here are two of them, both ready to menace your player characters and both slated at the uncommon rarity.

Up first is the Skeletal Champion, a figure I've wanted to create since I first saw his illustration in the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary. We later used the same illustration in the Pathfinder RPG Beginner Box, where the Skeletal Champion is one of the major antagonists provided in the set. I've long had a goal to create miniatures of every monster in that set, so when it came time to plan the Shattered Star miniatures set (and the Shattered Star Adventure Path itself), I asked James Jacobs to make sure to include a skeletal champion somewhere in the campaign. He obliged, and I finally got my miniature.

The Mummy Cleric is a similar story. Back when we were doing the Rise of the Runelords set, we almost slipped in a "Thassilonian Mummy" figure, partly because a few appeared in the Adventure Path, and partly because the Mummy in Heroes & Monsters, our first Pathfinder Battles set, looked a lot more like a rank-and-file bruiser from a Scooby Doo episode than a chilling, memorable villain.

The Thassilonian Mummy didn't make the final cut for Runelords, so when it came time to create the Shattered Star outline, I asked James if he might include more Thassilonian Mummies in the new campaign (which was, after all, set in the ruins of Thassilon). We then asked artist Tyler Walpole to draw what one of these guys might look like, and he came up with a skull-faced menace that blew our socks off.

Accordingly, this figure is now one of the tougher opponents PCs will face in the campaign. He's still Thassilonian, but he's his own villain, a nasty undead cleric of Groetus, God of the End Times. We call him (appropriately enough) the Mummy Cleric.

Good luck with this one, player characters!

That's it for this week. I have other undead I could show you, but we have a few more weeks to go before things get really spoooooky for Halloween.

I have tricks, and I have treats.

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: The Golems' Got It!

Friday, September 21, 2012

Earlier this week WizKids brought by the case incentive miniature for the upcoming Shattered Star set of prepainted Pathfinder Battles miniatures. In the previous set, Rise of the Runelords, the incentive miniature was the enormous Rune Giant, which lorded over the rest of the set and looked absolutely amazing doing it.

I can't say what the case incentive figure will be for Shattered Star yet (because I want to show you a painted sculpture for extra jaw-droppage, and we're not quite there yet), but when we got a look at it, our excitement for this set exploded to the next level, which is something I didn't even think possible (we like the Shattered Star set an awful lot).

So I can't show off that incredible miniature just yet. But I do have a couple of other incredible figures this week to make up for it!

Up first this week is the Iron Golem. This Large figure is based on a great illustration by Tyler Walpole that I think captures a classic look for this iconic dungeon monster. The paint job on this guy is relatively simple, but WizKids has made subtle choices that make the simplicity work for it. The color of the creature's “iron” skin has a sheen to it that really sells the metal effect, similar to the way the Karzoug Statue in Rise of the Runelords really looked like it could have been made of stone. Even better, the Iron Golem's eyes and mouth are painted in a sort of pearlescent orange, giving the effect of smoldering fire within the sockets. WizKids brought by a production sample of this figure at this week's meeting, and everyone commented on how much they liked it. I think you'll like it too.

The Alchemical Golem from Bestiary 2 is one of my favorite golems in the game, so it's fitting that the Alchemical Golem from the Shattered Star set is one of my favorite prepainted plastic miniatures in any set. This Large miniature is SERIOUSLY cool.

I count FIVE different colors of clear plastic on this figure, from the green goo that fuels its body to the varicolored potions in its syringe fingers. Best of all (and not really visible in this preview photo, alas), the clear dome of the Alchemical Golem's head actually contains a little brain! Gross!

Expect preorder pages for the Shattered Star set to appear very shortly here on paizo.com, and it's not too early to ask your local retailer to make sure they order enough copies of this set from their distributor.

It's going to be a great one!

More next week.

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Feel the Burn!

Friday, September 14, 2012

We've just finished laying out the packaging for the upcoming Shattered Star set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted plastic fantasy gaming miniatures, which means we'll very shortly have the product up for pre-order! These figures support the new Shattered Star Adventure Path, but are of course usable in any fantasy campaign.

At this point, all of the sculpts have been approved, and the only figure still in painting is the enormous Gargantuan "case incentive" miniature, whose big reveal is still probably a few weeks away.

While we wait for these important milestones, let's take a look at more figures from the set. Come along, won't you?

Here we have the Medium Fire Elemental in all his burning glory! Emerging from a pillar of flame, this guy stands about a foot taller than your average adventurer, which I think qualifies as "fiery death from above." He's sculpted in clear plastic, and should look extra-flamey when light shines through his clear bits.

Why call this guy a "medium" fire elemental, you might ask? Well, because there is another fire elemental at a different size coming in a future preview.

Just kidding. Here he is. This beast is the Large Fire Elemental.

This guy is WAAAAAAY bigger than a normal adventurer. Heck, he's bigger than the biggest ogre we've produced to date. He is SO BIG that it almost seems like he should fit on a Huge base. But no, he is in fact Large. We just love putting as much value into a miniature as possible, and the Large Fire Elemental is a good example of that principle in action. It's also a suggestion that if we ever do a truly Huge fire elemental in the future, it's going to be absolutely astoundingly enormous. Again, the Large Fire Elemental is sculpted in clear plastic for extra fiery effect.

And because we're about to reveal packaging that has this next guy on it anyway, I've decided to include a bonus figure in this week's preview. The Guiltspur Naga!

This creature is one of many of its kind that traveled up through the Darklands and into the ancient Thassilonian ruin of Guiltspur, site of the Shattered Star's fifth adventure, "Into the Nightmare Rift". This creature is Large and in charge. And in the office next to mine, our Creative Director James Jacobs is working on this creature's encounter RIGHT NOW!

Because production on the set is still in swing, we have not yet assigned solid rarities to any of the figures in the set, including these. Keep your eyes on this space in the next couple of weeks for specific details on the set's configuration, price, and release date.

There's a lot more where these came from!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: That's a big sword!

Friday, September 7, 2012

Last Friday, the poor Paizo Blog was bereft of a Pathfinder Battles preview on account of yours truly running the Pathfinder demo room at PAX Prime. PAX is an enormous Seattle-based convention with a primary focus on computer games, which means that the 70,000+ attendees are all decked out with the latest trends in wireless gaming and handheld mobile devices. This has the side effect of train-wrecking internet access from virtually anywhere in the convention, which means no blogging from the show floor.

Thanks for your patience, and I hope you minis fiends out there were able to make it through the weekend without a major bout of the DTs.

Anyway, because you got no previews last week, I wanted to make sure you got something big this week. And when I think big, one of the first things that comes to mind is the massive sword wielded by our iconic barbarian, Amiri, who just happens to star in the new Shattered Star Pathfinder Battles set!

WizKids really outdid themselves with this figure, as they have with all of our iconic characters so far. I originally tried to get the company to include Amiri in our first Pathfinder Battles set, Heroes & Monsters, but WizKids politely declined, saying that the overwhelming detail and pointy bits of Wayne Reynolds's original illustration would make it impractical to sculpt in plastic. (Incidentally, that's why H&M only has one iconic character, whereas all following sets have two).

By the time Shattered Star came around and WizKids had already proven themselves more than capable of handing challenging subject matter, I quietly added Amiri back to a set list, and this time they didn't even flinch. Instead they came back with what I consider one of the most beautiful figures they've produced to date.

Looking at the figure in hand brings out a lot of awesome details that you can't quite make out from the photograph. Amiri's slight sneer, the cracks in her armor plates, and the scars on her belly really jump off the figure in an awesome way.

And yes, she's holding an enormous sword. Don't blame us! She stole it from a frost giant, and it's served her very well to date, especially when she's raging.

I think you guys are going to love her.

But since I said "big" in the title of the blog post, it only seems fair that I include an actual "big" miniature in addition to a regular-sized miniature holding a big sword. For that purpose, I've decided to also reveal the Hill Giant!

This sculpt perfectly captures the slack-jawed glory of the original hill giant illustration in the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary, and continues to round out our offerings of "core" giants in prepainted plastic.

Although the Shattered Star Pathfinder Battles set includes lots of specific NPCs born out of the Adventure Path itself, it's also a chance for us to include plenty of rank-and-file monsters that just happen to be encountered in the course of the campaign. This rock-throwing simpleton is just one of the many yet to come.

But they will, alas, have to wait for future Fridays, as I am all out of time!

See you next week,

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: A Very Important Column

Friday, August 24, 2012

We’re back from Gen Con, and holy cow things went great for Paizo at this year’s show! I was very pleased at the reception of our new Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder Battles prepainted plastic fantasy miniatures, as con-goers surrounded our display of all the unboxed figures throughout the exhibit hall hours, and I kept seeing the figures (along with our new Bestiary Box Pawns) all over the 95 tables of Pathfinder Society games that ran every slot of the convention.

I was especially pleased to accept the gold Gen Con/ENnie award for Best Miniatures Product for our very first Pathfinder Battles set, Heroes & Monsters. As proud as I am of that initial offering, from my perspective the Pathfinder Battles sets just keep getting better and better, so I’m eager to see what next year’s judges and voters think of Rise of the Runelords and the upcoming Shattered Star minis set!

We ended up selling out of all the Rise of the Runelords minis by Sunday, and I was pleased to see several gamers getting in line two or three times with piles of boosters in hand as they hunted down that one specific figure or simply augmented their growing collection of Pathfinder Battles miniatures. Reaction to the new four-figure standard booster format was very positive, and it was really cool to see people so excited about a product line I’ve personally poured a ton of attention and sweat into over the last year. I was pleased to see that our partners at WizKids felt similarly, and your support made both of our conventions among the best ever.

Of course, as much as I love the Rise of the Runelords figures, these days I’ve been spending an awful lot of time with that set’s younger, hotter cousin, the Shattered Star! This set of 55 miniatures is currently slated for a January 2013 release, coinciding with the publication of the final volume of the Shattered Star Adventure Path!

Shattered Star was our first opportunity to develop a set of miniatures to support an Adventure Path at the same time that that Adventure Path was being outlined. I’ve spoken before in earlier columns about the difficulties associated with such a plan (we have to make LOTS of decisions MUCH sooner than we’re used to in order to pull it off given the extremely long lead-time involved with miniatures production), but one of the great things about this approach is that I got to sneak a few miniatures into the set (and hence into the Adventure Path outline) that have never before been released as prepainted plastic miniatures.

Which leads us to today’s figure: The Caryatid Column!

This creature has a long history in fantasy gaming, but its inspiration has an even longer history in, well, history. Caryatids—which is to say columns in the form of maidens—have been a part of architecture since the ancient Greeks. Their use dates back to at least the 6th century BC. I was able to see one of the famous caryatids at the British Museum while visiting London after Gen Con UK a few years back, and the sculpting was so realistic that the stone dresses worn by the figure looked soft to the touch, almost like it was real cloth on a real woman.

Happily, in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Caryatid Columns actually DO come alive, making them near-perfect low(ish)-level constructs. Plus, hitting them has a way of breaking the PCs’ weapons, which is always fun for the GM.

When I decided to include a Caryatid Column in the Shattered Star set, I took a look at the drawing included in the Pathfinder Bestiary 3. a neat enough illustration, but it lacks the sort of clothing effects I expect to see on a Caryatid Column inspired by the genuine articles. Instead I asked WizKids’ artists to base their sculpt upon an actual, real-life Caryatid Column from the ancient world. I think the resulting figure looks a lot better than a straight translation of the art from the Bestiary.

By sculpting our Caryatid Column figure in “column form,” the miniature doubles as any sort of pillar you might want to throw on your game table. I’m eager to set up whole rows of these guys (or gals, as the case may be) in my dungeons. Maybe some of them are ordinary pillars, while others are monsters waiting patiently for the arrival of the heroes. Who knows? Well, I know, of course, which is one of the reasons I prefer to be the GM.

Lastly, because I’m a nice guy and because I’m sure a few of you out there are wrongly clicking your tongues and thinking “big deal, so it’s a column,” I’m going to drop ONE MORE preview on you.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Night Hag!

So until next week... pleasant dreams!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Reaper Miniatures Bones: An Evolution Of Gaming Miniatures

Thu, Aug 16, 2012 at 08:00 AM Pacific

I don't normally contact you about another company's products like this, but in this case, it was such a great project that I felt compelled to let you know so you wouldn't miss out!

Our friends at Reaper have been running a Kickstarter project to ramp up their Bones miniatures line. Bones is the line that takes their award-winning metal minis and makes them much more affordable by casting them in an amazing plastic material. (Like Reaper's metal minis, Bones are unpainted.) We have a number of Bones minis in the Paizo offices and everyone is amazed by them.

So why the Kickstarter? Well, the molds to make plastic miniatures cost a LOT more than molds to make metal. So even though Bones have been well received and are selling very well, Reaper has only been able to add to the line slowly—until now. Their Kickstarter project is going to allow them to jumpstart the process and make a lot more affordable Bones figures. They started with a very reasonable $20,000 goal that they quickly smashed through! They have passed the $565,000 goal as I type this—a truly remarkable feat!

So what does this have to do with you as a Paizo customer? I'm glad you asked! Reaper has just announced their first Pathfinder Bones stretch goal. The "We Be Goblins" stretch goal will bring nine Pathfinder goblin minis to the Bones line. Yep, you heard that right—nine!

The purpose of this blog is let you know about Pathfinder Bones, but it's also a heads-up from one gaming friend to another about this amazing Kickstarter. If you use miniatures at all in your game, you're going to want to get involved in this Kickstarter. You can support it at a number of different levels, but I really want to draw your attention to what Reaper calls the "Vampire" level, for backers who kick in $100. When this Kickstarter began, you got 30 Bones miniatures for that $100. Well, because Reaper keeps reaching more and more stretch goals, that $100 pledge currently gets you 132 Bones miniatures and a special metal Sophie (their iconic succubus) for that same $100 pledge! And it's only going to get better—the "Vampire" level is where the Pathfinder goblins will kick in!

When I personally got in on this Kickstarter, my $100 got me 44 miniatures. Now, because of the pledges of other gaming fans out there like me, I am getting the 132 figures plus the Sophie. And it is going to become even more because of the way the Kickstarter stretch goals work. As more and more people join into the Kickstarter at any level, but especially the Vampire level, we will pass more stretch goals and more minis will be added to my $100 Vampire reward level. At $605,000, we Vampire-level backers will all get 4 very cool demon miniatures, bringing our new total to 136. And then when the stretch goal after that gets hit—boom—NINE Pathfinder goblins added for the same $100 pledge. And each stretch goal gets you more cool minis.

You can see why I wanted to tell you about this. Right now, backers are getting Bones minis for well under a buck apiece—this is by far the best deal in miniatures that I have ever seen. And as more people join in, it gets better and better for all of us. And for Reaper, because they'll be able to get a whole bunch of new Bones figures out there.

There are nine days left in the Reaper Bones Kickstarter—it ends Saturday, August 25 at 6pm EST. If you are at all interested in miniatures, seriously think about pledging to this Kickstarter. What a great way to grow your miniatures collection AND help out a great game company like Reaper. (And I've been told that there is another Pathfinder stretch goal buried in that crypt somewhere. Can't wait to find out what it is!)

Yours in gaming...

Lisa Stevens
CEO, Paizo Publishing

And now a word from our friends at Reaper...

What Are Bones Gaming Miniatures?

Bones are the best plastic gaming models to hit the industry in the last decade. We've taken the best miniatures in the Reaper product line and converted them into plastic - high quality, low price. What more could you ask for? For more info, click here.

Why are we doing this Kickstarter?

Reaper Miniatures Bones Kickstarter is a project to ramp up the production of the Bones plastic miniatures line and to get you the miniatures you want now! And to make things even better, we're adding our officially licensed Pathfinder Miniatures line to our project!

Since the launch of Bones in March 2012, a full third of the figures we ship are Bones plastic gaming miniatures. We have eight pages of Bones suggestions going in our forum. It's clear that our fans want more of these Bones figures. And why not? They're awesome sculpts at a terrific price!

As it turns out, they're also really expensive to produce. The mold costs alone are astronomical. In order to grow this line, we can do it slow and steady over the next several years, or we can defer to you guys and launch a bunch of new ones as soon as possible. By the end of the year, we anticipate having 30 products in the Bones line. What this Kickstarter will do is at least double the Bones line to 60 total models: character models, new sculpts, big monsters... the sky's pretty much the limit.

All we need to kickstart this thing is your support.

What Do I Get For Supporting You?

We have a number of opportunities available for our supporters.

These include, but are not limited to, various apparel items, a chance to receive each of the new 30 Bones plastic models, a metal Kickstarter-exclusive Sophie model, Design-Your-Own-Miniature packages, not to mention some of the most valuable one of a kind Crown Jewel items from the Reaper archives. (And we have some incredible stretch goals in mind – we remain ever optimistic!)

Something for everyone who loves miniature gaming.

Now we're offering some of the most popular miniatures from the officially licensed Pathfinder Miniatures range. What do you have to do to get these Pathfinder Bones miniatures? Simple! All you have to do is pledge either the Vampire or Undertaker Levels from the Pledge List, and if we hit the Pathfinder Bones stretch goal, they'll be added to your Pledge Level at no additional charge! And if you want extras, simply add them to your pledge amount.

The first Pathfinder Bones stretch goal has been revealed. Go join in and pledge to the Reaper Miniatures Kickstarter project and bring them to life for everyone to enjoy!

The Kickstarter has funded, and in fact, it is now over $500,000 and at this point It has been running for over 20 days. There's just over a week left until the project closes on August 25th 2012 at 5:00pm CST. Hurry and get involved and let's see how many Pathfinder Bones we can uncover!

REAPERMINI.COM/KICKSTARTER

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Opening Big

Friday, August 10, 2012

We're tying up all the final loose ends before heading to Indianapolis for Gen Con next week, so because I'm so busy, I'm going to let my favorite freelancer write a fun description of the creature depicted in today's blog:

"It was a paw, fully two feet and a half across, and equipped with formidable talons. After it came another paw, and after that a great black-furred arm to which both of the paws were attached by short forearms. Then two pink eyes shone, and the head of the awakened gug sentry, large as a barrel, wabbled into view. The eyes jutted two inches from each side, shaded by bony protuberances overgrown with coarse hairs. But the head was chiefly terrible because of the mouth. That mouth had great yellow fangs and ran from the top to the bottom of the head, opening vertically instead of horizontally.
"
    —H. P. Lovecraft, "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath"

Yes, today's featured miniature is the Gug, subterranean terror of Lovecraft's Dreamlands. This horrific monstrosity is the centerpiece of an epic encounter in the Shattered Star Adventure Path. That campaign kicks off this month, with the new Shattered Star Pathfinder Battles prepainted miniatures set currently slated for January.

That's a pretty sweet looking monster, eh? It has cleaner teeth than Lovecraft's version, and yellower eyes, but this miniature captures the essence of the description that inspired it, and it's sure to strike terror into the hearts of your player characters. The quality of the sculpt and paint job have a lot to do with that, but to me the most impressive thing about this figure is its size.

This guy TOWERS over player characters, pushing the very limits of the Large size category.

And the blood in his mouth is shiny.

He's great, and I can't wait to build a little shrine in my office with like eight of this guy.

Next week we're at Gen Con for the official release of the Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder Battles set, as well as a sweet new booth display of every Pathfinder Battles miniature released to date.

Stop by the Paizo booth to claim your very own limited edition Festering Spirit figure (free with $50 purchase), and don't forget to seek me out and say hi. I'd love to hear what you think about the Pathfinder Battles line (or any of Paizo's products), and what you'd like to see us do in the future.

Regular Shattered Star Pathfinder Battles preview blogs will continue in two weeks. Until then, see you at Gen Con!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Starting Small with the Shattered Star

Friday, August 3, 2012

August is upon us, and we've finally reached the release month for the Rise of the Runelords set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted miniatures! We'll debut the set at Gen Con Indy, which means that the complete shipment is currently sitting in our warehouse, which has picked up a distinctive smell of fresh plastic. I love the smell of fresh plastic in the morning. It smells like... Victory.

Anyway, you guys are going to explode with delight when you get the Rise of the Runelords figures in your hands. They are absolutely amazing, and set a new standard for prepainted plastic miniatures.

A standard we're set to exceed with the very NEXT set, the Shattered Star! This third official set of Pathfinder Battles miniatures (produced in cooperation with our friends at WizKids) contains 55 figures, and is currently slated for a January 2013 release. We're still working on some of the final details on price and packaging, so it'll be several more weeks before we have the product pages for this set up and running here on paizo.com, but we don't want to let pesky details like that get in the way of revealing some of the amazing figures we've been working on over the last few months.

Even though we haven't yet revealed a single Shattered Star mini, we're actually much farther ahead in the production process with this set than we've been at a similar period with other sets. We've approved about 90% of the paint masters so far, and are only waiting on a couple of figures. Preview images from the set should be landing here every Friday until I run out of them, and believe me when I say you're in store for some absolutely astounding miniatures.

Before I get to today's initial reveals, I want to talk briefly about spoilers and the nature of previewing a set of miniatures for an adventure campaign that hasn't been published yet—it's going to be a bit difficult, and you probably ARE going to have a few minor details and surprises spoiled by reading these weekly blogs.

I'll take care to hide truly egregious spoilers (“this guy is the arch villain of adventure three, but he's the PCs' best friend for the first two adventures, LOL”) behind spoiler tags, but as the entire point of showing off these miniatures is to, well, SHOW OFF THESE MINIATURES, I'm not going to hide every image behind a spoiler tag. If you're the type of player or GM who gets bent out of shape knowing that certain monsters are scheduled to appear in an adventure you haven't played yet, it may be a good idea to keep your eyes away from this space for the foreseeable future.

‘Cause I'm going to spill some secrets.

Let's start with some small ones, from the very first volume of the Shattered Star Adventure Path, Shards of Sin.

Up first is the lowly Mite, a rank-and-file monster from the pages of the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary. This standard Small fey creature plays an important role in the opening adventure (and this isn't the only mite in the set, either). I love how gross WizKids' master painter made this little bugger, and I can't wait to get a whole pile of them to add to my personal collection.

Speaking of giant piles of monsters I'd quite like to add to my collection, allow me to introduce you to a derro known as Caedimus!

Good Caedimus is a rank-and-file derro. We've given him a specific name to differentiate him from the other derro in the set (which we'll show off soon), but like the Mite, Caedimus is currently slated at the common rarity.

I'm hoping to get a bunch of him.

That's it for this week. Although both of these critters are Small, they're a good intro to the set, which in future weeks will include lots of much, much, much larger figures.

We're on the hunt for the Shattered Star! Come back to this space next Friday for a look at some more awesome minis coming your way in January!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Rise of the Runelords Round-Up

Friday, July 27, 2012

We're still in the process of photographing the paint masters for the next Pathfinder Battles set, which ties into the Shattered Star Adventure Path. The first installment of that campaign debuts in just a few weeks at Gen Con Indy, where we'll also debut the Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder Battles set.

While our cameras are clicking in anticipation of future blogs, I thought it was high time to reveal the complete official set list for the Rise of the Runelords set, complete with collector numbers and rarities.

I am really excited to hear your feedback on this set later this month. I think you're going to love it. And for the first time, here's a complete, official list of the set for your collecting pleasure.

More next week, including honest-to-goodness images of the first Shattered Star set. I swear!

But for today, here's the list!

Rise of the Runelords Set List

Common		Uncommon
1  Bugbear Hero 2  Goblin Commando 3  Goblin Dog 4  Goblin Warchanter 5  Kobold Champion 6  Faceless Stalker 7  Ghoul 8  Harpy 9  Ogrekin 10  Yeth Hound 11  Denizen of Leng	12  Redcap 13  Sinspawn 14  Sinspawn Axeman 15  Skinsaw Cultist 16  Alu-Demon 17  Lamia Kuchrima 18  Shining Child 19  Warrior of Wrath 20  Wraith	21  Goblin Commando on Goblin Dog 22  Jakardros Sovark 23  Lyrie Akenja 24  Ameiko Kaijitsu 25  Harsk, Dwarf Ranger 26  Lamia Matriarch 27  Malfeshnekor 28  Orik Vancaskerkin 29  Tsuto Kaijitsu 30  Vale Temros 31  Kaven Windstrike 32  Khalib	33  Ogre 34  Ogre Brute 35  Seoni, Human Sorcerer 36  Shalelu Andosana 37  Viorian Dekanti 38  Dire Bear 39  Stone Giant 40  Stone Giant Champion 41  Vraxeris 42  Lamia 43  Wendigo 44  Yeti
Rare		Huge	Promotional (Gargantuan)
45  Aldern Foxglove 46  Jaagrath Kreeg 47  Lucrecia 48  The Scribbler 49  The Skinsaw Man 50  Highlady Athroxis 51  The Mithral Mage 52  Runelord Karzoug	53  Stone Golem 54  Azaven 55  Lamatar Bayden 56  Mokmurian 57  Forgefiend 58  Nualia 59  Warchief Ripnugget 60  Young Red Dragon	61  Karzoug Statue 62  Lamia Harridan 63  Storm Giant 64  Treachery Demon	65  Rune Giant

Good luck completing your collections!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Spirit of the Season

Friday, July 20, 2012

With the glories of PaizoCon behind us, the Paizo editorial department finds itself deep in the throes of that fabulous annual event called Gen Con Prep. The office is abuzz with the work of getting ready for the Big Show. All of Gen Con's big releases (Ultimate Equipment, the Bestiary Box, etc.) were finished long ago, of course, but there's still a ton of stuff to do before we can head to Indianapolis next month. We've got catalogs to finish, signs to complete, Pathfinder Society events to edit, and a million other tasks that are probably invisible to Gen Con attendees, but which are absolutely critical to making sure the show goes off without a hitch.

That's all a very long and elaborate way of saying I've been too slammed this week to write a proper blog introducing the next set of Pathfinder Battles miniatures, which ties into August's Shattered Star Adventure Path. We've seen about 2/3rds of the paint masters for this set already, and they continue the tradition of steady and amazing improvement we've been shooting for with each new release in the Pathfinder Battles line. The WizKids production manager is bringing over a bunch more paint masters tomorrow, and I'm hoping we'll have seen almost the complete set within a few short weeks.

The first pictures of some Shattered Star minis will come next week. This week I want to show off a miniature that fits in between the Rise of the Runelords and Shattered Star sets. And it just so happens that this miniature ties into the general theme of Gen Con Prep, as it's the official 2012 convention promo figure: The Festering Spirit!

The Festering Spirt made its debut at PaizoCon, where we included a complimentary figure in every attendee's goodie bag. We'll also have the figure at Gen Con, available for free with any purchase of $50 or more.

Many of you may recognize the base sculpt of the Festering Spirit as the Spectre from the Heroes & Monsters set. This time, we've cast the undead horror in clear plastic, and then drybrushed the figure with shades of opaque green. The mini really shines when held to the light, and the whole thing adds a very "toxic" luster to what is already a spooky miniature in any color.

We'll have singles of the Festering Spirit available following Gen Con here on paizo.com, so those of you who weren't able to make PaizoCon or Gen Con will still get a chance to get your hands on this very cool figure.

And with that, it's back to the salt mines for me! Next week, we'll take our first real look at the Shattered Star, and you guys are going to be blown away!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: The (Goblin) Dog Days of Summer

Friday, June 29, 2012

It's 2:25 PM and I still haven't written today's Pathfinder Battles preview blog.

MUST BE SUMMER!

I love the arrival of summer here in the Pacific Northwest, which for the other 9 months of the year likes to keep itself cloaked in a mantle of soggy gray misery. Finally, the sun peeks over the mountains and through the otherwise ever-present clouds, and a bit of happiness returns to the world.

Unfortunately, I'm always too damn busy to appreciate it, because summer also means the arrival of the most hectic season for Paizo, with prep for major conventions like Gen Con and PAX eating up virtually every minute of the day. Right now we're working liked geased tinker-gnomes trying to get all our tasks accomplished for PaizoCon, which happens NEXT WEEK!

Oh. My. God.

So yeah, sorry it's taken a few extra hours of waiting for today's Pathfinder Battles goodness. I assure you (especially those of you coming to PaizoCon) that the wait will be very much worth it.

Speaking of PaizoCon, I'm pleased to announce that it's our intention to have EVERY SINGLE figure in the Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder Battles prepainted miniatures set on display at the convention store, so I encourage minis fanatics attending the show to bring cameras, because you're going to see some stuff there you've never seen before, even on this very blog! (The set will also be on full display at Gen Con, where we'll actually have the product for sale in line with its August release.)

Next week's blog will feature the set's final "mystery figure," the creature so challenging to sculpt and paint that it took us something like eleven tries to get it right. Can you guess what figure that might be?

In the meantime, here are two remaining stragglers who we haven't managed to show off yet, mostly due to bad camera angles on our original paint master shots. Somehow, our over-worked art team managed to snap a few better images of these shy characters (in their final production-run incarnations, no less), and now we're ready to reveal them to the world.

First up is the Goblin Dog, a common figure that you'll definitely want by the handful if you're running the first chapter of the Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition (now also available as an ultra-sweet Deluxe Collector's Edition).

As you can see by this critter's gross skin and gnarly teeth, "Goblin Dogs" aren't really dogs at all, but nasty rodents trained by goblins as repulsive mounts. Goblins hate real dogs, of course, but everyone needs a best friend, and these gross creatures fill the role admirably.

Next up we have Viorian Dekanti, a rare villain from the final chapter of the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path, Greg A. Vaughan's "Spires of Xin-Shalast". Viorian wields Chellan, one of the legendary Seven Swords of Sin. A champion of the campaign's final "end boss," Viorian is not one to be trifled with (though her golden armor is certainly worth a pretty penny).

Of course, if you like the looks of her, Viorian can easily double as a martial player character or any important NPC armed with a sword and wearing fancy armor.

That's it for this week. ONLY ONE MORE MINI TO GO!

Then, I suppose it'll be time to start revealing figures from the next set.... which we plan to reveal at PaizoCon!

See you there (or see you here, in upcoming weeks)!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: The Runelord's Apprentice

Friday, June 22, 2012

This week I want to show off another never-before-seen miniature from the upcoming Rise of the Runelords set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted fantasy figures. We've come very close to revealing the entire set, but we still have a small handful of beasties and bad-guys still to be revealed.

So let's start with a bang by revealing the one and only Khalib, apprentice to Runelord Karzoug himself! This high-level transmuter was once one of Karzoug's greatest apprentices, and indeed it was to be Khalib who would rescue Karzoug after the disaster that ended the runelords' empire in ancient days. That plan failed, and now Khalib has been freed from prison because the newly awakened Runelord needs all the help he can get against the player characters.

Khalib appears as a major villain in the last chapter of the Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition campaign. He's packed with ancient magic and 10,000 years of bitterness, and when you put his beautiful miniature on the table, he won't soon be forgotten!

By my count, we have only a couple miniatures left to preview in the next few weeks. Tune in next week for another major villain, and then shortly thereafter for a look at what proved to be—by far—the most challenging miniature (production-wise) in the entire set. Can you guess what it is?

You'll know soon enough!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Sing, Sing, Sing!

Friday, June 15, 2012

The August release date of the new Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder Battles miniature set approaches, and you can tell by the rising sound of chittering and singing on the horizon. "Goblins chew and goblins bite! Goblins cut and goblins fight!" the chanting goes, growing nearer and nearer. Your dog begins to bark with anxiety, casting watery eyes toward the back door. Out in the yard, you hear your horse whine in fear.

The goblins are coming. Their song haunts the darkening skies.

With the first adventure in the now-classic Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path, our own James Jacobs created a brilliantly demented twist on goblins, and their haunting (and yet somehow hilarious) song about killing dogs and horses, bonking baby heads, and stewing flesh solidified goblins as the Pathfinder monster in the minds of roleplayers everywhere. That song put us on the map.

In the goblin raid encounter that starts the campaign, all the goblins attacking Sandpoint sing James's little ditty, but the one leading the song is the Goblin Warchanter, a female bard with a whip and a nasty attitude.

Here she is in all her plastic glory, screaming at the top of her little lungs. This common miniature is a great addition to the several other goblins in the set, and helps to set the scene in style with the campaign's very first series of encounters. We've even drawn out the location of Sandpoint's Swallowtail Festival on the new GameMastery Flip-Mat: Town Square, which has several perches and crannies for the Goblin Warchanter to seek refuge once the player characters interrupt her song.

But here's hoping they don't do it too rapidly. The last line of the song goes "We be goblins, you be food!", and it's always important to remind the player characters of their proper place in the world.

Don't you agree?

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: The Golem's Got It

Friday, June 8, 2012

I've spent the week in New York City at Book Expo America, chatting with booksellers and distributors about Paizo's exciting upcoming products. I was very pleased to receive an early print sample of the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path Anniversary Edition hardcover to bring to the conference, and it was fun to watch everyone's mouths fall agape as they took in the gorgeous book. I don't think it's much of an exaggeration to claim that Rise of the Runelords is one of the most beautiful RPG books ever produced, and I'm so pleased with our team at Paizo and all of our freelance writers and illustrators for putting out such a great celebration of 5 years of Pathfinder and 10 years of Paizo Publishing. It really is a sight to behold.

A great campaign needs great miniatures, of course, and in this regard our partners at WizKids keep hitting it out of the park. I've been sharing early looks at the Pathfinder Battles Rise of the Runelords 65-figure set for months, and as we draw closer to the set's August release, I'm amazed that there are still so many cool miniatures left to reveal.

This week's miniature is the Stone Golem, a critical encounter as the campaign builds up to its climax.

This Large, rare figure packs a heavy punch. He's got his fists raised to pummel your player characters into the ground. The great thing about golems is that they can look like just about anything their creator wants. That's quite a handy bonus when it comes to miniatures, in that a unique-looking golem can easy double as another type of creature as needed. In this case, we pulled the crowned skull face directly from the creature's illustration, which has the helpful side-effect of making this guy a great substitution for any kind of undead behemoth you might need.

Speaking of undead behemoths, after a full week of day-to-night meetings at the Book Expo, I am TIRED and am looking forward to getting some shut-eye on the long flight to Seattle.

I'll have another Pathfinder Battles preview next Friday, so keep your eyes on this space!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Bone Chiller

Friday, June 1, 2012

This week I'm revealing one more prepainted plastic miniature from the upcoming Rise of the Runelords set in our Pathfinder Battles line produced in conjunction with WizKids. We're in the home stretch now, with only a few miniatures left to reveal, so I'm slowing down the pace a bit to make up for the explosion of early reveals over the last few months. As my mother and work supervisors have always told me, I've got to learn to pace myself.

So if it's to be only one miniature this week, it's got to be something big and cool and scary. It's got to be something that, to my knowledge, has never before been produced in prepainted plastic.

It's got to be the Wendigo.

The rare Wendigo appears late in the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path, menacing the player characters as they approach the campaign's endgame. The new hardcover Anniversary Edition features lots of new illustrations, and a brand new shot of the wintery Wendigo facing off against Valeros is one of my absolute favorites in the new book.

Incidentally, printer samples of the Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition hit my desk earlier this week, and it's fair to say that not only is it one of the most beautiful Pathfinder products released to date, it's one of the best-looking RPG books I've ever seen. And I'm not just saying that because I love it like an only child.

A book of that quality deserves really kick-ass minis to go along with it, and I think the Wendigo is one of the most interesting and unique figures in the set. For starters, its Large size allows it to tower over many of the other figures. That size gives the sculptors more space to work their magic, so from the antlers to the severed leg stumps (mounted in a clear plastic base to give a floating effect), this guy is packed with interesting details. WizKids also outdid themselves on the Wendigo's paint steps. Check out the creature's bloody hands! They even went so far as to apply a shinier paint to the Wendigo's eyes, to give them a glassy, eerie look.

He's awesome. And he's going to scare the pants off your player characters!

We still have several more miniatures to reveal in the weeks leading up to the set's August release. We'll have samples of the entire set on display at Paizo Con, so if you're planning to head to that event, prepare to bask in the set's glory in person.

I'll be there, and so will the haunting Wendigo!

See you next week!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Big Bads (Volume 2)

Friday, May 25, 2012

Here we are on the precipice of a three-day weekend, and I got so excited I completely forgot to put together a blog for today's Pathfinder Battles preview! So let's cut to the chase and get to the previews of two of the Big Bads from the Rise of the Runelords set of prepainted Pathfinder Battles miniatures!

Both of these characters come from the fifth volume of the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path, “Sins of the Saviors,” by Stephen S. Greer. Last week I revealed some of the rank-and-file badguys from that epic adventure, and this week I've got a couple of significant enemies that perfectly set the stage for the campaign's endgame.

First up we have The Scribbler, the first big villain of the adventure. One of the evil goddess Lamashtu's most powerful mortal servants, The Scribbler dwells very near the home base of your Rise of the Runelords heroes, and he's sure to be a sworn enemy of your player characters. With a nasty sword and a mask covering half his face, The Scribbler easily doubles as a bandit leader or any kind of unique villain your campaign requires. We've placed him at the rare rarity.

Remember the Warriors of Wrath from last week's preview blog? Well, those nasty ladies need a leader, and the good (well, ok, not “good” per se) Highlady Athroxis is quite happy to keep them in line. This high-level eldritch knight Highlady of the Halls of Wrath is ready to unleash some whupass on your PCs with her +3 adamantine flaming ranseur, molded here largely in clear plastic to sell the flame effects. Naturally, this uber-high-level adversary with the shiny clear plastic bits falls into the rare rarity.

So that's it for this week of fun in the sun. Only a few more miniatures to show off, including a “chilly” mini almost no one is expecting to help you cool off on these warm summer days!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Of Sins and Saviors

Friday, May 18, 2012

There's something really cool about the fifth volume of the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path, Stephen S. Greer's “Sins of the Saviors.” After venturing through volumes loosely themed around goblins, ghouls, ogres, and giants, this fifth installment kicks the campaign backstory into high gear, with the player characters exploring a vast dungeon known as the Runeforge, a relic from the era of the ancient Runelords themselves.

In fact, during their adventure in the Runeforge, the PCs even get a chance to meet with survivors from that distant era, making this adventure an important pivot point for the campaign, essentially shifting things into the endgame to come in the final sixth volume.

What that means in a practical sense, especially because the PCs are now 12th level themselves, is that they finally get to face off against some pretty kick-ass bad guys who pack a powerful punch. In this week's blog, I'd like to reveal two of those bad guys. While they don't quite qualify as the Big Bads of the adventure (we'll get to them next week), these guys play key roles in important encounters, and are sure to be remembered by your players for a long time to come.

Coincidentally, both also make excellent player character miniatures themselves!

First up is the Warrior of Wrath, the result of centuries of genetic breeding and intense training in the Halls of Wrath, one of the most challenging of the seven sinful sub-dungeons of the Runeforge. These angry eldritch knights are the last of their long line, so it's a good thing the player characters show up to give them a target upon which to vent their rage and aggression! Because you'll need at least 6 Warriors of Wrath to pull off their encounter, we've slotted this figure in the common rarity.

Wrath isn't the only sin to get a sub-dungeon in the Runeforge. In the Shimmering Veils, pride is the sin that rules that day, and perhaps none in all of Golarion are so prideful as the illusionist Vraxeris, once among the most trusted servitors of Xanderghul, Runelords of Pride. Through cunning and the mastery of cloning techniques, Vraxeris has managed to survive in the thousands of years since the fall of the Runelords' ancient empire. Now, his mad simulacra wander the halls of the Shimmering Veils, eager to defeat intruders and certain that they have what it takes to keep their weird dungeon free from interlopers. Vraxeris is slated at the uncommon rarity.

We're nearing the end of the Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder Battles set (though a few super-awesome figures still remain to be revealed!), so I'm slowing things down a bit here in the blog, and plan to show only two figures a week from here forward. My head is already in the NEXT set, about half of which will be showing up at the Paizo offices later this afternoon for final sculpt approval.

The actual final production figures for Rise of the Runelords have started rolling into my office, and I'm pleased to report that the figures match the paint masters with amazing fidelity. Looking at these little pictures on the blog and holding the actual minis in-hand simply don't compare. I can say with honesty that I think the Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder Battles set will be the best and most consistently awesome set of prepainted plastic miniatures released yet for hobby gaming.

Until we put out the next set, that is!

See you next Friday,

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: A Small Update

Friday, May 11, 2012

We're getting to deep into the previews for the Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder Battles set that I've almost run out of pictures to show you! A handful of minis remain yet to be revealed, but I'm pleased to report that some of them are among the coolest in the set!

Today I'd like to show off two Small miniatures from the set that leave a very big impression.

Up first is the dreaded Kobold Champion! This lizard-like warrior woman might look a bit like a rank-and-file kobold, but she's in fact encountered late in the campaign, and boy does she ever pack a surprising punch! Although the Rise of the Runelords campaign contains only one Kobold Champion, we decided to slot this figure in the common rarity, reasoning that game masters can always use more well-sculpted kobolds to swarm over their players at any level!

It's probably a bit difficult to tell from the small photos here, but this figure has a remarkable number of paint steps for both a common miniature and a Small miniature, making her really stand out despite her diminutive size. From the paint gradient on her legs and tail to the bright blue tongue, this is one of several minis in the set where I think to myself "I can't believe this awesome mini is a common!"

Up next is the Redcap, a fey menace from real-world mythology with a long history in fantasy gaming. To my knowledge, no Redcap has previously appeared as a prepainted plastic miniature, which makes it a great addition to the Rise of the Runelords set. This little guy comes with the appropriate metal boots, oversized scythe, and the eponymous red cap. As fitting the Redcaps' role in the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path Anniversary Edition campaign, we've slotted the Redcap in as a common, so you can easily collect a bunch of them.

That's it for this week's preview. The set contains at least two more size-Small figures, as well as a few more exciting surprises.

There's lots of great stuff yet to come! Enjoy the weekend, and don't forget to get in some gaming!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: The Gross, the Bad, and the Ugly

Friday, May 4, 2012

We're getting close to having revealed all of the miniatures in the upcoming Pathfinder Battles set, Rise of the Runelords! It seems like only a few weeks ago that I started showing of sculpts and paint masters, but in fact it's been months, and as I type this the production run of miniatures is trundling through the factory. All of the paint schemes have been approved, all the decisions have been made, and now all that's left is the waiting for the early August release.

Well, the waiting and a few more previews, that is!

Two weeks ago I promised something ugly, and today I'm fulfilling that dark pledge with three figures from the murkier side of the set. These are nasty dudes you definitely don't want to run into in a dark alley, and all three of them make creepy additions to your game table.

Up first is the Ogrekin, a nasty in-bred half-ogre whose clan is the centerpiece of “The Hook Mountain Massacre,” the third chapter in the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path. With rippling muscles and a deformed (really gross) head, this bruiser wanders the wilderness looking... well, let's just say he's “looking for love,” and leave it at that. This common miniature is technically Medium-sized, but he's pushing the top-end of that scale, and makes for a really intimidating figure.

Faceless Stalkers were created in ancient times by the mysterious aboleths as interlocutors with the various air-breathing races of the surface world. Via a painful biological process, the creatures can warp and contort their form to take on the appearance of an enemy. When not pretending to be your wife or best friend, these guys run around in the gross, misshapen form revealed here. The photograph above doesn't quite show off the nasty detail of reddish ink in all of the nooks and fleshy crannies along this guy's skin (especially on his back). The Faceless Stalker is statted up in Bestiary 2, but even if you don't have that resource, this common figure doubles as any kind of hideous humanoid. Ick!

Last up today we have a friendly neighborhood initiate in the local cult of homicidal slasher maniacs, known to the denizens of Varisia as the Skinsaw Cultist! This common figure makes a nice rank-and-file cultist. His skinsaw mask and war razor root him firmly in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting, while his robes and general creepiness make him a good troop-builder for a wicked cult in any campaign.

That's it for this week. I've only got a few more sculpts to show off, but I promise that some absolutely amazing stuff is still waiting to be shown! Come back next week for another early look at Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder Battles miniatures!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Behold the Black Arrows!

Friday, April 20, 2012

I'm on the road this week, so today's preview will be short and sweet.

In recent weeks, we've showed off a lot of monsters and villains from the Rise of the Runelords set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted miniatures. This week, I'd like to show off a trio of key NPCs that might prove to be enemies OR allies in the course of the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path, the notorious Black Arrows rangers!

I'm really pleased with how awesome these minis turned out. Best of all, they make for great player character minis, and perfect stand-ins for whatever kind of warrior-types you might need in your campaigning beyond the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path.

First up we have Jakardros Sovark, an uncommon human ranger who happens to be the stepfather of Shalelu Andosana, Varisia's famed elf ranger protector. Jakardros lost an eye somewhere along the way, but I assure you that hasn't hurt his skill with the bow and arrow!

Next up is Vale Temros, an uncommon human ranger/fighter with two axes and a whole lot of hurt to unleash on his enemies! I'm thrilled with how well Vale turned out, and in-hand I think he's one of the best miniatures in the set. I'd certainly love to put him on my table as either a PC or NPC!

Last up we have Kaven Windstrike, an uncommon ranger/rogue who might not turn out to be quite as helpful as his Black Arrow fellows. Unfortunately, Kaven's sword snapped off before we could grab a good photo of him (the paint masters are made of a much more brittle plastic than the final figures), so you'll have to use your imagination to see his supremely awesome sword. (Ok, it's pretty much just a normal sword, but as long as we're imagining...).

Be sure to get your own Black Arrows by preordering a Standard Case of Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder Battles minis, or set up an ongoing case subscription to ensure your best chance of getting all 65 figures in the set!

That's it for this week. Next week, I promise something gross and monstrous!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: In the Lair of the Lamias! (Also: Storm Giant)

Friday, April 13, 2012

We've already revealed the dreaded Lamia Matriarch and the Huge Lamia Harridan, but the Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition has even more lamias to slay player characters everywhere, and we're pleased to reveal two more in today's preview blog!

Up first is the Lamia, a creature with ties to ancient Greek mythology and a strong pedigree in fantasy roleplaying games. Appropriately placed on a Large base, this nasty creature has a hateful streak you've really got to look out for. The common miniature also a great likeness of the art from the Pathfinder Bestiary.

Here we have the Lamia Kuchrima, the weakest of the lamia-kin. These flying creatures flock to the mountain skies of Varisia, as they have since the distant days of the ancient Runelords. Many dwell there still, and player characters in the Rise of the Runelords campaign will be facing several as they hack their way to the hidden city of Xin-Shalast at the campaign's conclusion. We've placed this figure at the common rarity, making it easy to gather a whole flight of them.

This figure isn't a lamia, but we think she's plenty cool. This Huge Storm Giant towers over player characters. The creatures feature heavily in the final encounters of the Rise of the Runelords campaign, and this powerful warrior is ready to usher things to a thunderous climax.

That's it for this week! Get ahead of the game by preordering Standard Boosters, Huge Boosters, or set up an ongoing case subscription!

I'll be back next week with more cool minis!

Erik Mona
Publisher

PS: I've already approved 24 figures from the NEXT Pathfinder Battles set, and they look even better than the amazing figures in this one!

Pathfinder Battles Preview: We Be Goblins!

Friday, April 6, 2012

Goblins chew and goblins bite.
Goblins cut and goblins fight.
Stab the dog and cut the horse,
Goblins eat and take by force!

Goblins race and goblins jump.
Goblins slash and goblins bump.
Burn the skin and mash the head,
Goblins here and you be dead!

Chase the baby, catch the pup.
Bonk the head to shut it up.
Bones be cracked, flesh be stewed,
We be goblins! You be food!

—The Goblin Song, Pathfinder Adventure Path #1

For my money, that three-verse song from the opening encounter of "Burnt Offerings," the very first Pathfinder Adventure Path adventure, is as responsible as anything for the huge success of the Pathfinder Adventure Path line. Over the years (and really more or less immediately), gamers began to equate Pathfinder with goblins, and the creepy little critters (as envisioned by artist Wayne Reynolds and Paizo creative director James Jacobs, the song's author) soon became a sort of unofficial mascot for the Pathfinder brand.

The Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder Battles fantasy miniature set gave us a great opportunity to revisit the first Pathfinder adventures, and we knew we needed to include as many goblins in the set that we could.

This week, I thought I'd show off most of the goblin miniatures from the Rise of the Runelords set to celebrate the fact that at long last, we're ready to reveal the set's product descriptions, prices, and case configurations!

I'll get to that a bit later. First, let's talk about goblins!

First up we have the common Goblin Commando, an elite goblin troop to supplement the Goblin Warrior or Goblin Hero from Heroes & Monsters. As you'll note in the Goblin Song above, goblins are no fans of horses, which is why this trooper's makeshift pole-arm is called a horsechopper.

Mounts beware!

Speaking of Goblin Commandos and mounts, here we have the vicious Goblin Commando on Goblin Dog, an uncommon figure that plays prominently in several encounters of "Burnt Offerings," especially in the raid on the town of Sandpoint that kicks off the entire campaign. August's Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition expands this encounter, working Flip-Mat: Town Square to set the scene. All you need to make it perfect is to add miniatures, and this guy is designed specifically for that purpose.

Here we have the leader of the goblins harrying Sandpoint, Warchief Ripnugget on Stickfoot. This teensie tyrant barks orders at his tribe from the back of a giant gecko, making the PCs' encounter with him (and with this rare miniature) one they won't soon forget.

There are at least two more goblin-related miniatures coming in later previews, so if you can hear one of the twisted verses of James Jacobs's Goblin Song echoing over the horizon, it's because we're not quite done with goblins yet!

The Nitty Gritty

We've been teasing product details for months, and I'm pleased to report that everything has finally fallen into place so that we can reveal all of the little details about the size of the set, when it will come out, and how the cases will be packaged. Click through to the various product pages for price and additional details.

Pathfinder Battles: Rise of the Runelords Set Details

Release Date: August 2012
Set Size: 65 prepainted plastic miniatures

The Standard Booster

Rise of the Runelords Standard Boosters contain four collectible miniatures. Each blind box contains a random selection of miniatures from the set, including one Large figure and three Medium or Small figures. Many figures feature colored clear plastic spell effects, crystals, and the like, and these figures range from monsters to important NPCs to Pathfinder iconic characters like Seoni and Harsk.

Standard Boosters come in the following configurations:
Single Standard Booster
8-ct. Standard Booster Brick
32-ct. Standard Booster Case (4 bricks)

The Huge Booster

The Rise of the Runelords set contains four Huge figures, from the Treachery Demon to the Lamia Harridan (shown below) to two figures we haven't revealed yet. The large size and relatively small number of these figures makes it impractical to include them in the Standard Booster, so WizKids created a new product configuration: The Rise of the Runelords Huge Booster. Each blind-boxed Huge Booster contains a single Huge figure from the Rise of the Runelords set.

Huge Boosters come in the following configurations:
Single Huge Booster
6-ct. Huge Booster Case

The Rune Giant

As we revealed last week, the biggest miniature in the set is the towering Rune Giant, our first Gargantuan miniature! The Rune Giant has been produced in extremely limited quantities, and is available for purchase only to retailers (from their distributor), paizo.com Pathfinder Battles case subscribers, and customers who pre-order a Standard case (while supplies last). For more details, visit the Rune Giant product page.

Subscribers

Customers with an Ongoing Pathfinder Battles Case Subscription receive the right to purchase the Rune Giant at 75% off the listed retail price, and are guaranteed access to this extremely rare figure at a rate of one per case ordered. They'll also receive a coupon code good for 20% off the purchase price of one Encounter Pack (such as Champions of Evil) and the standard 20% case subscriber discount on all Pathfinder Battles singles purchases made on paizo.com.

Completing the Set

We've worked hard with WizKids to pack the cases in such a way that customers who purchase a case of Standard Boosters, a case of Huge Boosters, and the Rune Giant can reasonably expect to complete the entire 65-figure set. While we cannot guarantee that this will happen due to the unlikely potential of packing errors at the factory, the intention is that a full line of cases will get a nearly complete set.

So that's it! The long-awaited full details on the long-awaited Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder Battles set!

Next week we'll be mack with more previews and more exciting miniatures reveals!

See you then!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: A Last Look at Heroes & Monsters

Friday, January 13, 2012

The first set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted miniatures, Heroes & Monsters, formally released this Wednesday. Many of you probably already have your miniatures, or are eagerly anticipating their arrival. Looking over the previews we’ve posted over the last few months, there are still a few minis we haven’t yet shown off in their final form, so if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to take one more pass through this first set before revealing the goods on the next set, which will support the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path.

Last week, I went through final images of several of the monsters from the set, but I managed to miss the nasty Orc Brute, which is actually one of my personal favorite figures from the set. I’m astounded by the detail WizKids got into the commons in this set, and this guy is no exception. As an aside, some folks have asked me about the names of some of these figures. I decided to call this guy an “Orc Brute” because he looked bulkier than the Orc Warrior. If you’re looking to emulate this figure with Pathfinder stats, I suggest adding the advanced simple template to the orc warrior and swapping his weapon to a club. Voila!

Speaking of commons, I’m quite pleased with how the Watch Guard turned out. His lantern lights the way through dark city streets, and he’s sure to come running 3d6 rounds after your player characters scream out for his help.

This common Watch Officer started out life as a Watch Captain, but I didn’t quite feel that his pose sold the “awesomeness” of a captain, so I busted him down a rank or two. I do hope to get a genuine Watch Captain into the line at some point. When that happens, you can expect him (or her!) to share the same color scheme and costume details of these two watch figures. Making “like” creatures look alike is a big goal for Pathfinder Battles, and one I hope we can continue to build on in future sets.

This “hero” doubles quite nicely for a villain, since he looks like he’s about to emerge from his hiding place in the shadows to stab you in the back. We call him the Human Rogue, and whether you use him as a player character or a common thug, he definitely comes with the right tool for the job.

Is the item in the hands of this uncommon Human Druid a bedroll? A really big scroll? I’m honestly not sure, even today, but I do think she looks pretty nifty. This figure doubles nicely as a noncombatant townsfolk or tribal character, though those blue crystals hanging from her belt have got to be worth something!

The uncommon Elf Wizard is captured in the act of casting a spell. The figure features a neat color gradient on the skirt of the robes that gives it a nice texture effect.

The uncommon Dwarf Fighter is pulled from the back cover of the Inner Sea World Guide, making him a sneaky actual Pathfinder NPC masquerading as a simple player character figure. Don’t tell the high court of the Five Kings Mountains, but High King Borogrim the Hale has been slumming it!

This uncommon Half-Elf Cleric worships the crusader goddess Iomedae, and comes complete with a holy symbol and a cool graphic on her tabard. She also works great as a paladin or fighter, depending on your mood. Just don’t make fun of her bowl haircut. I hear she’s pretty touchy about that subject!

And that’s it! Looks like my art team forgot to take a picture of the Human Ranger (one of my favorites in the set), so I guess next week we’ll just show a picture of him and put off the Runelords previews again.

JUST KIDDING!

We’ll add him as a special bonus image to next week’s blog, which I promise is going to melt your brains with awesomeness. I can’t believe how great these Runelords minis look! Best of all, we’ve photographed paint masters of almost the entire set, so we should be able to jump right into the good stuff immediately.

That’s not too difficult, because as far as Rise of the Runelords is concerned, it’s all good stuff!

I hope you’ve enjoyed these Heroes & Monsters previews. We’ve now posted singles for sale to help you complete your sets (don’t forget that case subscribers get a discount on singles orders!). If you haven’t yet placed your Heroes & Monsters case or brick orders, I suggest doing so soon. These minis are moving much faster than we anticipated, and they will not be around forever!

See you next week!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: One More Look at the Bad Guys

Friday, January 6, 2012

January 11th is the official release date for Pathfinder Battles: Heroes & Monsters, our first big set of prepainted miniatures produced in cooperation with WizKids! That means we have only two more chances to show off the final sculpts of minis we've previously revealed only as digital renders or pre-production samples. A few commenters on last week's preview blog also suggested some size comparison shots, which we've thrown together below.

Two weeks from today, we'll begin to reveal some of the amazing miniatures in store for our next set, Rise of the Runelords. We now have photos of paint masters for about half of that set, so you can expect to see some amazing, full-color images pretty much immediately.

But that's the future, and the first set isn't even out yet. It deserves just a little bit more time in the sun.

Once again, these are photos of actual miniatures from the Heroes & Monsters set. Enjoy!

Up first we have the Zombie, a common menace that can't wait to sink its teeth into your player characters. As I chronicled several preview blogs ago, this guy started out with a kind of goofy "dancing" pose, but his revised look is more of an undead lunge, and I'm really pleased with how he turned out.

This rare Werewolf retains very little of his original clothing, and almost none of his humanity. The black paint scheme perfectly matches the common Wolf in this same set, giving you both bestial forms of a lycanthropic menace.

This haunting fellow, the rare Spectre, is enormously spooky. The detailed sculpt of his wispy bottom half looks really great in-hand, as many of you will no doubt discover only a few days from now.

Here we have the uncommon Venomous Snake, looking like it's slithered directly off the page of the Pathfinder Bestiary. Ssssssweet!

Speaking of snakes, who better to accompany the Venomous Snake than the rare Medusa, one of the best sculpts in the set? WizKids did a great job capturing the likeness of this iconic creature, and I'm willing to bet she becomes one of the break-out favorites of the set.

And here's my absolute favorite of the bunch, the rare Ettin. I don't think there's ever been a better prepainted mini of this two-headed giant, who absolutely towers over the other figures in this set.

Don't believe me? Check this out:

See what I mean? This guy is huuuuuge. Ok, he's actually Large, in game terms, but he really pushes the envelope, and is sure to elicit gasps from your players when you plunk him on the table!

Of course, the special promotional Huge Black Dragon (who actually is Huge) is the real masterpiece of the set. Here he is standing next to the Medusa, who really ought to start fast-talking soon. Acid breath cuts right through stone, so I imagine it does a good number of filmy white cloth and slightly scaly skin...

That's it! The final look at the monsters of Heroes & Monsters. Next week, we'll take one more look at the heroes, and after that, we're off to Varisia to take a very early peek at the Rise of the Runelords!

Only five days until the official release of Heroes & Monsters! Order your copies today before they are gone forever (something I suspect will be happening sooner rather than later)!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: From Digital Renders to Final Product

Friday, December 30, 2011

When we first started revealing images from the Pathfinder Battles Heroes & Monsters set, all we had to show off were the very earliest computer-rendered images from the first few weeks of production. These gave a good idea of the quality we were shooting for with this first set of prepainted miniatures, but the digital renders lacked some of the depth and paint steps of the final miniatures.

Now that we’ve revealed the complete set in one way or the other and we stand on the precipice of the actual release, I wanted to go back through the set and update a few minis that you’ve only seen in digital form thus far. Below are actual photos of actual miniatures from the Heroes & Monsters set.

This little guy was one of the very first digital renders we revealed way back in August. Here’s the wily Gnome Fighter in all his final glory, complete with a tankard on his belt and bright orange hair to terrify his enemies. This uncommon miniature comes packed with the Dire Rat we showed off two weeks ago.

Next up is the rare Half-Orc Barbarian, one of the set’s most complex figures in terms of pose and detail. This figure looks wonderful in-hand, and makes a fantastic mini for the archetypal, well, half-orc barbarian. Good? Bad? He’s the one with the axe.

This rare Vampire, on the other hand, is all bad guy. WizKids did a great job bringing out the complex detail on the Vampire’s stylish armor. Whether he gets you with his upraised sword, his nasty fangs, or his essence-draining touch, the Vampire will get you one way or the other.

This sexy lady with red demon wings is looking for a good time, and promises a kiss you will never forget (note: do not actually make out with your Pathfinder Battles figures). She’s the rare Succubus, and she’s not pleased with your remark that Bettie Page hairdos are so 2002.

This bad boy, the rare Troll, leaps off the cover of the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary to menace your gaming table. Sure, he looks a little like he’s got his hands in the air like he just don’t care, but those jazz hands will tear your player character to shreds, which will then be devoured by his jazz tusks. He will kick your azz.

Speaking of kicking ass, here’s the coolest mini in the whole set, the promotional Huge Black Dragon! This promotional miniature will be shipping to Pathfinder Battles case subscribers and folks who pre-ordered before October 1st, and was produced in extremely limited quantities. It is supremely awesome.

Also awesome: The more than 25 paint masters for the next set, Rise of the Runelords, that WizKids brought over for approval this afternoon. I won’t be revealing any of those until after Heroes & Monsters is out, but when I crassly mentioned how I thought you guys would react upon seeing them, James Jacobs was friendly enough to offer two G-rated corrections. In his words, you will “poop your pantaloons,” or “brown your britches.”

I couldn’t have said it better (or cleaner) myself!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Taking Another Look

Friday, December 16, 2011

The official release date for Heroes & Monsters is now only a few weeks away, and by this point I’ve revealed every miniature in the set in one form or another. Later today our friends at WizKids will be bringing over first-run outputs of the approved sculpts for the next set, Rise of the Runelords, so my mind is already on the next amazing set. But those previews will have to wait until next month, as I want to take one more pass through Heroes & Monsters to show off some of the final versions of minis you’ve only previously seen as computer models or unpainted practical sculpts.

First up we have the uncommon Dire Rat, one of the earliest miniatures we revealed for the set. Your comments (and our own impressions) said that the computer-generated 3D sculpt of the rat looked too “clean,” so I asked WizKids to add a layer of filth over the whole guy to really sell the idea that he just stepped out of a sewer. I’d say they nailed it. Gross!

Speaking of early reveals, next up we have the rare Lich, previously seen only as a computer sculpt. The final production-run miniature shown below reveals nice metallic effects on the shoulder pads and chestplate, while WizKids’ talented paint operations have added a cool speckled highlight effect on what originally appeared to be a flat black cloak. This guy really looks like a badass, and I love the way the detail at the hem of his cloak gives the whole thing a sense of texture. I can’t wait to put this guy on the table and see my players run for cover.

Next up we have the common Lizardfolk Champion. This is your first look at this guy in color, and honestly, I’m not sure our camera is up to the challenge of showing off how good the Champion looks, especially for a “common” figure. I count eight different colors, from his black toenails to the touch of blue at the top of his crest. The Lizardfolk’s curved tail and weapon pose give it a great sense of three-dimensionality. We call him a Champion, but at the common rarity, he makes a great troop-builder figure for a Lizardfolk squad. More Lizardfolk will certainly follow (with plenty of variety within the types), but this guy gets us off to a good start.

Speaking of amazing commons, the Orc Warrior is one of my absolute favorite figures in the set. Not only is he an amazing likeness to the illustration in the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary, but he’s got more detail and a better paint job than most prepainted orcs that preceded him (although I also really like the Orc Brute from this set). There will DEFINITELY be more orcs in the future, and we’ll be careful to match the skin tones, size, and general “look” to make sure all of them work well together.

Lastly we have the only iconic character in Heroes & Monsters, the rare paladin Seelah. Although the way this photo frames her face makes her seem like a bit of a Popeye look, the mini looks really nice in hand. The metallic silver and gold of her armor really pops, and I love the design WizKids pulled off at the hem of her skirt. There will, of course, be more iconic characters to come, with Rise of the Runelords getting two, bringing the total (including the four in Beginner Box Heroes) to 7. Only 14 to go before we’ve covered them all!

That’s it for this week! WizKids is bringing a pile of new minis over later today, and I can’t wait to start planning preview blogs for the next set! Let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to know about Heroes & Monsters, and I’ll do my best to help out!

These things are almost in your hands! I can’t wait to hear what you think of them once you get to see them for yourselves!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: A Gaggle of Goblins and Gargoyles

Friday, December 8, 2011

Today’s preview blog marks an important milestone for the Heroes & Monsters set of prepainted Pathfinder Battles miniatures. With this preview, we’ve revealed all 40 miniatures in the set! In the few more weeks leading up to the formal release of Heroes & Monsters (looking like very early January, at this point), I’ll go back through the set and show off painted versions of early unpainted preview sculpts and digital renders, but with the images below, you will have seen (in one form or another) every single miniature in our first Pathfinder Battles set.

The most elusive preview image for Heroes & Monsters has been this Gargoyle, based on art from the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bestiary. Like his counterparts perched upon gothic buildings, the Gargoyle blended in well with his surroundings, and I never managed to add him to the preview pile until now. There’s no reason we’ve been holding him back—he’s a really cool miniature, with sweeping wings and big curved horns. If you’re feeling adventurous, a coat of paint on this guy could make him into a demon or devil too.

Next up we have all four goblins in the Heroes & Monsters set. A few weeks ago, I mentioned that we had to remove the Goblin Mystic sculpt for quality control reasons (his noggin was way, way, way too big), leaving us in a significant pickle. Unfortunately, there was no time to add a full-on new goblin sculpt, so we made the best of a bad situation, and decided to add a re-decoed Goblin Hero in place of the badly sized Mystic. The four goblins in the set, from left to right in the image above, are Goblin Warrior, Goblin Hero, Goblin Hero, and Goblin Warrior.

We’ve painted these similar miniatures in two distinctive paint schemes, making it possible to imagine them as members of different goblin tribes. The two Goblin Warrior sculpts are very minor variations with very slight pose differences. The Goblin Heroes are the same sculpt painted differently.

The goblin minis come two to a pack, so you should be able to start your goblin horde fairly quickly. The next set, Rise of the Runelords, has several more goblins on the way, including a Goblin Warchanter, Goblin Commando, Goblin Commando on Goblin Dog, and a goblin chief astride a giant gecko.

But those will have to wait for a future preview!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Rounding Out the Set!

Friday, December 2, 2011

The official release of Heroes & Monsters, our first Pathfinder Battles prepainted miniatures set, is approaching! Over the last few months, I’ve used this weekly space to reveal sculpts and final images from the set, and with this post, I will have revealed all but one of the miniatures here on the blog! (You’ll have to wait for the Gargoyle, alas, as I forgot to ask the art department to photograph him this week. Sorry!)

After that, I’ll show off a few painted versions of figures we have only seen in sculpt form, and after THAT I’ll begin showing off sculpts from the NEXT set, Rise of the Runelords. I’m very pleased with what we’ve seen so far from Heroes & Monsters, but holy moley, Rise of the Runelords takes things to the next level. I can’t wait!

But that’s the future. Onward to today’s previews!

First up we have the Wolf, a common miniature sculpted in a nice leaping pose. Note the haunting red eyes and the nasty teeth! Aside from this being a solid miniature of a wolf, I’m pleased to report that the paint scheme used on its fur is identical to that used on the Werewolf I previewed a few weeks ago, making this a perfect choice for the “wolf” version of that creature. Throw a pack of these bad boys at your party and they’re sure to be barking at the moon!

Next up we’ve got the Mummy, an uncommon undead menace lurching its way toward your campaign. When we originally added the Mummy to this set, he was pegged to the “rare” rarity, but when the final sculpt came in he struck me more as a “rank and file” Mummy than a super awesome end-of-the-campaign undead overlord, so I busted him down to uncommon, making it easier to rack up a few of these guys for a nice higher-level encounter. Some day soon I hope to get that Mummy Overlord to make the perfect “captain” for a squad of these guys, but in the time being I think this one packs a suitable punch.

Next we have the Chimera, which I must confess has been one of the most difficult and frustrating models in the entire set. Some of you may recall a digital Chimera sculpt we released as part of our initial publicity push for the line. We were never really satisfied with that sculpt. It wasn’t based on Pathfinder art, and it just looked too cartoony and “not right,” no matter how many times we modified it. Worse, it lacked a critical part of a Pathfinder Chimera’s anatomy—wings. That was the death knell for that sculpt, but just when we thought all was lost, WizKids came to the rescue! It turns out they weren’t satisfied with the original look, either, so they green-lit a resculpt behind the scenes to see if a different artist might be able to come closer to what we needed. The final Chimera pictured here is the result of their effort, wings and all.

So there you have it for today’s previews. I’m off to approve more amazing sculpts from our next set, Rise of the Runelords!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: A Frosty Black Friday!

Friday, November 17, 2011

The Paizo offices may be closed for the Thanksgiving holiday, but nothing can stop the relentless march of preview images for the upcoming Heroes & Monsters set!

This week’s preview blog is a special treat in that it features only one miniature. But for my money, I think it’s the coolest miniature in the entire set! I’m talking about the Frost Giant!

The Frost Giant towers over the other miniatures in the set, raising his nasty axe high for a deadly blow to the head of any player character within his considerable reach. The larger size of the miniature really helps to accentuate the fine details of the sculpt, and this figure looks great standing next to his kin from other companies miniature sets.

But his “look” isn’t the only thing that makes the Frost Giant stand out. He’s got a trick up his sleeve. Literally.

Look closely and you’ll notice that this version of the Frost Giant holds a different weapon in his left hand, a mighty sword! Given the difference, you might think that Heroes & Monsters contains two different Frost Giant miniatures, but you’d be wrong!

The Frost Giant comes complete with two different left hands, each holding a different weapon!

WizKids sculpted the Frost Giant with an empty socket at its left wrist. The miniature comes with a choice of two different weapons, which you can snap in and out with ease. I’ve seen prepainted plastic miniatures with different parts before (a necklace here, a chain there), but I’ve never seen anything like the versatility of this mini before, and I think it bodes very well for future sets, which could hold similar surprises of their own.

Making big miniatures like this more modular is a nice way to diversify your doubles, and I’ll confess that it’s simply cool to play with this thing, changing one weapon for the other or adjusting the wrist to pull off the coolest pose.

So if you’re lucky enough to find the Frost Giant in your Heroes & Monsters booster and a friend asks “Did you get the one with the sword or the one with the axe?” you can answer:

“I got them both!”

That’s it for this week. We’re back to at least three previews next week, and we’re getting close to a complete set reveal! Happy Black Friday, everyone!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Spidery Secrets!

Friday, November 17, 2011

With the very first Pathfinder prepainted miniatures, Pathfinder Beginner Box Heroes, in stores now, interest in the Pathfinder Battles miniatures line has really heated up. Now that many of you have our first four miniatures in hand, it should be clear that WizKids is shooting for very high quality sculpts and paint jobs on all of the Pathfinder Battles miniatures. I think Heroes & Monsters keeps up (and in some cases exceeds) the high quality standards set by Beginner Box Heroes, and in a few short weeks, you’ll be able to see what I’m talking about with your own eyes.

Until then, we’ve got more previews to reveal! The early January release date for Pathfinder Battles Heroes & Monsters is fast approaching, and I find that we’ve pretty much announced all of the 40 miniatures in the set. I wanted to include at least one complete surprise this week, and this penultimate look brings us a single miniature away from a complete set reveal. We’ll get to that last one next week or beyond, but for now, let’s look at some creepy critters from Heroes & Monsters!

First up we have the Giant Spider, a nasty, poisonous fellow who clocks in at the common rarity. Bright red coloration is nature’s way of saying “I’m going to kill you,” and in this regard the Giant Spider is just as deadly as the bright red Venomous Snake we showed off a couple of weeks ago. Don’t forget your antivenom!

This Skeleton makes a good buddy for the Giant Spider, in that they’d both probably feel at home in the same sort of desolate dungeon environments. They also both make excellent adversaries for low-level adventurers. Both of them are commons. Many of the folks here in the office who see the Skeleton say, “wow, he looks just like he stepped out of a Ray Harryhausen movie!” Which is nice to hear, as it’s exactly what we were going for. If you look closely you can see a nice inking effect that WizKids added to the Skeleton’s shield to better sell the wood grain. It looks wonderful in person.

Sure, a Medium Giant Spider is cool, but take it from me. A Large Giant Caveweaver Spider is much, much cooler. This guy absolutely towers over lesser spiders, and he’s even been useful in scaring a few of our “adult” employees who have a very childish reaction to spiders (I’m looking at you, Bulmahn). Heh, heh, heh. Though you can’t quite see it in these photographs, the Giant Caveweaver Spider has a really cool red design on its back that is sure to have your player characters (and Jason Bulmahn) scampering for the exit. Everyone will be glad to hear that this is a rare miniature, so it’ll thankfully be a long time before these guys overrun the Earth.

Lastly, I wanted to provide a group photo of this week’s previews, so you can get a sense of just how huge that Giant Caveweaver Spider really is. Imagine that the Skeleton is the same height as a normal man, and you’ll get a strong idea that messing around with the Giant Caveweaver is a really, really bad idea!

Ok, ok, ok. I hear the skeptics already. There’s nothing terribly revolutionary about spiders and skeletons, no matter how cool they might look.

To which I say, fair enough. So next week, I’m going to show you a Heroes & Monsters figure with a feature unlike anything you’ve seen before in a prepainted miniature! I still can’t believe how awesome and innovative it is, and it’s been sitting on my desk for a month!

As usual, I’ll try to monitor the discussion thread here on the blog. Let me know if there’s anything in particular you’d like to see from the set, and I will make sure we cover it shortly!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Crazy-Good Commons

Friday, November 4, 2011

Just yesterday, the fine folks from WizKids stopped by the Paizo offices to drop off the final batch of Pathfinder Battles Heroes & Monsters miniatures. I now have, sitting on my desk, actual production-run copies of all 41 miniatures in the set, from the lowly Goblin Warrior to the mighty Huge Black Dragon. Looking at them all lined up on my desk, I’m very impressed with the quality WizKids brought to bear on this set, and I think players are going to be absolutely thrilled with them. As much as I like sharing these images with you every Friday, there’s just something special about holding these miniatures in your hand that can never come through on a photograph.

I’ll begin revealing images of these final miniatures starting next week. This week’s batch is the last of the pre-production samples. Generally speaking, these look identical to the final versions except they haven’t yet been attached to the bases. I’ll see about showing off the bottoms of the bases next week, too, as they look a little different from prepainted plastic miniatures you’ve probably seen from other companies, in that you can actually read the name of the monster and other helpful information. More on that soon.

Today I want to focus on some of the common miniatures in the Heroes & Monsters set. When I first came into the prepainted miniature business, my understanding was that common miniatures often had very few paint steps, and were basically created as “cheaply” as possible as a way of subsidizing the more complicated miniatures pegged to the more scarce rarities. While there is some element of that in the Pathfinder Battles line (very complex minis are indeed more likely to be rarer), I was very pleasantly surprised to see the amount of quality and detail WizKids put into even the common miniatures in the set.

When I’ve showed the production samples around the office, it’s often been commons like the Orc Warrior or Lizardfolk Champion that folks identify as their favorites. With Pathfinder Battles, we let game utility dictate rarity more than things like sculpt complexity or paint steps. If you might want a ton of a certain creature in your game, we did everything we could to put that creature at the common rarity. If you only needed one, we made it a rare, and so on.

Here are preview images of three such common creatures, starting with the friendly (or not-so-friendly) fellows who tend to show up every time your player characters get into trouble in a town or city: the watch!

Here we have the lowly Watch Guard, the rank-and-file police or guard who peers through the darkness with his lantern and impales criminals with his simple spear. You can almost hear him say, “Wot’s all this, then?” as he advances toward your criminal player characters, with very little sense that they might have six or seven levels on him and weapons that cost more than he will earn in a year of cleaning up the city.

Every good gaggle of guards needs a leader, so when we were first planning this set, I asked WizKids to add a Watch Captain to the list. The guy they came back with looked pretty cool, but I thought he was a bit too regular-looking to fully pull off the “captain” rank, so I busted him down. He’s now the Watch Officer, nervously looking over his shoulder for a future set that might include his direct superior.

Or perhaps he’s nervous about an attack from this next common, the mighty Orc Brute! WizKids did an awesome job with the set’s two orcs (the Orc Warrior, taken directly from the Pathfinder Bestiary illustration, is even better than this one). This guy is ready to knock your head off with a nasty club capped with a bunch of nails. If it came down to the fight between the Orc Brute and both of the Watch figures put together, my vote goes to the orc. As Wesley Snipes once famously said: “Always bet on green.”

That’s it for this week. With a full set of finished minis to show off, next week’s preview will be the cream of the crop. Let me know what you’d like to see, and I’ll be sure to add it to the list!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Spooky Salutations!

Friday, October 28, 2011

All-Hallow’s Eve is almost upon us, so I’ve decided to shake up the regular preview regime and show off a few spooooooooky Pathfinder Battles miniatures from the forthcoming Heroes & Monsters set, regardless of their distribution rarity within the set.

First up is the Zombie, one of the most iconic horror creatures of all time. We figured that most GMs would appreciate a horde of these undead critters, so we’ve placed him in the common rarity—the better to overrun your player characters, of course!

This guy was a real struggle to get right. The first digital sculpts we received had his hands in the air like he was some kind of dancing fool, but after a bit of tweaking I think he’s finally in a correct “grasp/lunge” sort of stance. The photo doesn’t quite do justice to the details on this figure. Parts of his skull and ribcage are peeking through holes in his rotted skin. Yuck!

Next up we have the Werewolf, a fearsome foe from myth and legend. This lupine horror lunges straight at your player characters with one set of claws up in the air for a killing strike! I especially like the way that the Werewolf still has remnants of his human outfit, such as the torn bits of his pants around the waist and the single leather bracer on his left hand. WizKids has also added a nice drybrushing effect to highlight the contours of the rare Werewolf’s fur. And though I don’t have a photo to show this week, gamers will be happy to know that the regular Wolf in this set has exactly the same color fur, meaning that you could use both miniatures to represent different stages of the Werewolf’s lycanthropy.

Lastly we have a creepy rare critter that you definitely don’t want showing up outside your door whispering “trick or treat.” Keeping the door shut won’t keep him out, because he is incorporeal and can walk right though! Beware, the Spectre!

Super-dedicated Pathfinder fans might notice that this Spectre miniature is not based on the Spectre illustration in the Pathfinder Bestiary. That’s probably OK, I reasoned, since the illustration of that creature in the Bestiary wasn’t originally a Spectre either, and its wispy bottom half and dwarf upper half didn’t strike the right pose for a miniature, anyway. Knowing that we needed a Spectre in our set, we looked through our entire art archive and pulled the best-looking “spectral dead” image we could find. Thus was born this nasty critter, who can double for just about any type of incorporeal undead in the game.

Yes, it would be an even cooler miniature if we’d figured out some way to incorporate transparent plastic into the figure, but for this first set we didn’t have the time to do that kind of trickery.

I’m happy to report that that isn’t the case for future sets, however, and plenty of creepy and cool minis with see-through bits are just over the horizon

So there you have it. Three of the creepiest minis from Heroes & Monsters, soon to be appearing on your gaming table. They won’t make it in time to share Halloween with you, but since they’re scheduled for a December release, I suggest making room for them at Christmas dinner.

I hear they’re ravenous.

Next Week: I reveal photos of some of the set’s amazing common creatures!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Uncommon Courtesy

Friday, October 21, 2011

I’m pleased to report that I have now seen preproduction samples of all 41 miniatures in the Pathfinder Battles Heroes & Monsters set, and I am thrilled with how they look! At long last we have discovered the “perfect” goblin skin tone, and the big meaty Ettin finally has the proper ink wash to make him a truly menacing brute. Things are really coming together, and folks around the Paizo office are blown away by the quality of the sculpts and paint jobs of the entire line. The commons in particular are amazingly impressive, with far better paint jobs than most gamers are used to at that rarity. WizKids has done a tremendous job both in the initial execution, and in keeping up with a bewildering amount of changes and suggestions from Paizo aimed at making these minis as close to perfect as possible.

To that end, we’ve been shaking up the rarity scheme a bit, so while I was planning to reveal the entire uncommon list today, we’re going to have to wait another week since a few minis are moving around and I don’t want to reveal anything that might change later.

But I do want to share some uncommon images with you! As I explained last week, we see the uncommon rarity as the perfect landing point for player character miniatures (the “heroes” in Heroes & Monsters). While everyone needs multiple orcs and goblins, you probably don’t need a whole army of human rangers or dwarf clerics or what have you.

Today’s blog shows off three of the uncommons (that won’t be changing rarities) no one outside the office has seen yet. Two of them are player character types, while the third is a creature you’ll use again and again.

Our first miniature this week is the Dwarf Fighter, a doughty dude in plate armor and a fancy winged helmet. If you’ve got a copy of the Inner Sea World Guide you probably recognize this guy from the back cover. He means business!

Next up is our Half-Elf Cleric, in this case a crusading warrior of Iomedae. I really like the way WizKids emblazoned her holy symbol on her tabard. And since she’s using a sword and wearing plate mail armor, this miniature easily doubles as a fighter or paladin.

Last up this week is a nasty Venomous Snake, whose image comes straight out of the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary. A bright red coat is nature’s way of saying “I am going to murder you,” and it’ll be fun to watch your players squirm like Indiana Jones when this little guy hits the table.

That’s it for previews this week! But here we are at the end of the post, and I can’t spoil that uncommon list I was planning to, and I feel terrible! So, in order to make up for this egregious slight, here’s a list of a few rares in the set that we haven’t previously announced!

Gargoyle
Half-Orc Barbarian
Spectre
Werewolf
Minotaur
Ogre

There are a lot more rares than that, but I’ve got to hold onto some of my cards. The set doesn’t come out until December, and we’ve got plenty more blogs to go before the set releases!

So let me know if there are other topics you’d like me to cover on these Friday blogs, and I’ll do my best to do so!

Cheers!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Heroes & Monsters Preview: Getting Into Character

Friday, October 14, 2011

Things are moving rapidly on the Pathfinder Battles front! This week, our partners at WizKids sent us 13 pre-production samples from December’s Heroes & Monsters 40-miniature set. These figures are very similar to the final production-run, so we’re within 95% of the final look of the miniatures. These figures are not yet attached to bases, but beyond that, they’re pretty close to done. We’ve spent the last couple days looking over every millimeter of these miniatures, getting our final feedback to WizKids so they can make minor adjustments before the figures start coming off the production line.

For today’s blog, I thought it would be fun to show off brand new photographs of three of these miniatures. Unlike the monsters we revealed last week, these three figures are designed to represent NPCs and player characters, and each belongs to a race and class found in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

Our first miniature is the sneaky Human Rogue. This little guy wears a long, dark cloak with a cute pointed hood, but his hidden short sword shows he means business. This figure doubles as a good urban thug or even an assassin.

Next we’ve got an Elf Wizard, caught in the act of casting a deadly spell. Though it doesn’t come through particularly well in the photograph, the elf’s robes have a neat color gradient that blends from bluish-gray at the shoulders down to purple at the hem of the robe.

Lastly we have a Human Druid from the deep jungles of the Mwangi Expanse. Who knows what powerful ritual is inscribed on her huge scroll? As much as I like this picture, it’s difficult to appreciate the detail on this figure without holding it in your hand. With metallic blue shards hanging from the strap on her side to the cool texture of her hair, this is a fantastic-looking miniature.

There you have it. Three adventurers ready for your game table, and we haven’t even gotten to the set’s iconic character yet!

All three of these figures are at the Uncommon rarity. Next week I’ll reveal more of the preproduction samples, and I’ll also list several more Uncommons we have planned for the Heroes & Monsters set.

See you in seven days!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Heroes & Monsters Preview: Common Courtesy

Friday, October 7, 2011

I don’t have any color previews to show you today, so instead I’ve decided to share three “behind the scenes” shots of unpainted preliminary sculpts for miniatures in the forthcoming Pathfinder Battles: Heroes & Monsters set. The complete set features 40 miniatures plus the premium Huge Black Dragon miniature. Of those 40 minis, 13 are packed in the common rarity.

When deciding which miniatures to assign to which rarity, we thought about how the miniatures would be used on the game table. If you generally encounter a single example of a given creature (say, a manticore), we assigned that miniature to the Rare rarity.

For creatures that come in larger numbers in game play, we were more likely to assign them the Common rarity. Stuff like orcs, goblins, city watch guards, and the like fit easily into this category, because everyone needs more than one. Our partners at WizKids put a lot of work into creating amazing sculpts even for the more common figures, as you can see below.

For starters, here is a nasty-looking Orc Brute, complete with a big club and plenty of need for good dental work. Note that this early sculpt has the wrong number of toes on each foot, something we fixed for the final sculpt.

Next we have a slightly more civilized Orc Warrior, whom you might recognize from the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary.

Lastly (for today), we have another nasty humanoid, the savage Lizardfolk Champion! Beware his trident!

This week is also the first in which we begin to reveal the final set list. In the spirit of the Common creatures revealed above, I thought I’d reveal the entire list of all 13 Common creatures in the Heroes & Monsters set! They are:

COMMON CREATURES
Goblin Warrior
Goblin Hero
Dire Rat
Gnome Fighter
Orc Brute
Orc Warrior
Skeleton
Watch Guard
Watch Officer
Lizardfolk Champion
Zombie
Giant Spider
Wolf

Next week I hope to show more color images, as well as reveal the 10 Uncommon figures in the Heroes & Monsters set! Come back to see what else we have in store, and look for Pathfinder Battles: Heroes & Monsters in stores this December!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Goblins on the March!

Friday, September 30, 2011

When we put together the set list for our first major Pathfinder Battles set, Heroes & Monsters, we knew it needed to contain several goblins. Ever since James Jacobs and Wayne Reynolds reimagined these classic monsters in the very first Pathfinder Adventure Path volume, “Burnt Offerings,” these little green-skinned bastards have been sort of unofficial mascots for the Pathfinder brand. They just had to be represented in the set.

The behind-the-scenes images below show the unpainted master sculpts of two of the goblins included in the Heroes & Monsters set. As WizKids’ sculptors pretty much translated our critters directly into three dimensions, we did not require any changes to their look.

The image below shows the goblins in their full-color glory. We asked WizKids to darken the greens a bit on these little guys, so the final production models will come off a little less day-glo than they appear here, but you can get a good sense of how nasty the goblins will look when they come chomping into your life in December!

They be plasticrack, you be food!

Next Week: I have no idea which images we’ll preview next week, but I am confident they will look awesome. Let me know what minis or Pathfinder Battles information you’d like to see, and I’ll do my best to reveal it here in seven days!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Heroes & Monsters Behind the Scenes

Friday, September 23, 2011

So far we’ve revealed the digital sculpts for 11 of the prepainted miniatures in our Pathfinder Battles: Heroes & Monsters base set, including the mighty Huge Black Dragon! Digital sculpts give us the chance to see what a miniature will look like in full color, and allow us a chance to make minor (or even major) adjustments to ensure that the miniatures accurately model the characters and creatures that inhabit the Pathfinder world.

But digital is not the only way to sculpt a miniature, of course. Even though our partners at WizKids use the most modern methods to create their beautiful minis, sometimes the best way to make a miniature is to sculpt it by hand using precision tools and modeling putty. This is the same process by which most metal miniatures come into the world. Because the epoxy putty used by most sculptors is usually green, minis lingo refers to these preliminary miniature sculpts as “greens,” no matter what color they turn out to be.

Below you can see the green of the tallest miniature in the Heroes & Monsters set, the two-headed Ettin. The pose is an amalgamation of a black-and-white ettin image from a Pathfinder’s Journal fiction piece and the ettin entry in the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary. When WizKids provided this image to Paizo for approval, Senior Art Director Sarah Robinson and I thought it captured the creature perfectly, and gave the sculpt our stamp of approval almost immediately.

Once a sculpt has been approved, WizKids technicians use the green to form the basis of the mold from which the entire production run will come. At about the same time this is being done, painters must determine what the final paint job of the miniature will look like. In the case of digital sculpts, general paint guides come with the sculpt itself. In the case of traditional sculpts, however, the artists must interpret colors from the original art, and take their best shot at how they think the final colors should look.

Just this week, WizKids sent over the proposed paint deco specs for the Ettin, which looked like this:

Like the sculpt before it, the paint deco sample passed inspection with very few changes. We like the way this guy looks. That said, from experience with the Beginner Box Heroes set, WizKids improves the painting with each step, so the final miniature will likely look a little more “weathered” than this one, giving it a slightly more realistic look.

So the Ettin went very smoothly, transitioning from art to green to mold to paint deco with virtually no hitches. I’m happy to say that this has been the case for most of the miniatures in the Heroes & Monsters set, but a few have been somewhat more stubborn, requiring more substantial changes at each step in the process. A good example of this is the Human Ranger.

When we decided to put the Human Ranger in the set, we provided this great illustration by Eric Belisle to WizKids.

Their sculptor’s first crack at this miniature captured a lot of what we thought was important about the character’s costume and general demeanor, but Sarah and I were concerned that the pose was too two-dimensional, and wasn’t as dynamic as Belisle’s original illustration. Our WizKids counterparts agreed, and came back with the following major improvement:

We really liked this approach, and approved the sculpt. Now here was a bowman we could see people really wanting to play, and the pose really tells a lot about the character. We were excited! But things got a lot more exciting earlier this week, when WizKids sent over the following paint deco for approval:

And that, as they say, was a bulls-eye.

From here the paint decos will be turned into “masks” that go over the unpainted miniatures, allowing paint application to go in all the right places. Add some hand-finishing to bring out the tiny details, and the Ettin and Human Ranger are on their way to production!

Next Week: Goblins, Goblins, Goblins!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Battles Subscriptions Go Live!

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Ever since we announced our Pathfinder Battles prepainted fantasy miniatures line in partnership with WizKids, members of the Paizo community have wanted a way to subscribe. Due to the special nature of randomly assorted blind-packaged miniatures produced by another company, it’s taken us about a month to pull together the appropriate website code to make it happen. I’m pleased to announce that today we are ready to reveal the Pathfinder Battles subscription plan, as well as some associated details about how you can make sure you don’t miss the exciting (and extremely limited-edition) Huge Black Dragon premium miniature from December’s Heroes & Monsters set! Best of all, the entire system is ready immediately, and you can begin your Pathfinder Battles ongoing subscription today!

Our new Pathfinder Battles ongoing subscription allows you to specify the number of cases you would like to receive of each major Pathfinder Battles set release. The first set, Heroes & Monsters ships in December, with a follow-up set, Rise of the Runelords, in June. We currently anticipate that future sets will appear about every 4 months.

In addition to major randomly packaged sets, WizKids plans to release several nonrandom Encounter Packs. These packs are not included in your subscription, but your subscription will allow you the opportunity to purchase them at reduced cost.

Each major Pathfinder Battles set will also include at least one limited-edition premium miniature. For Heroes & Monsters, the premium miniature is the fearsome Huge Black Dragon ($14.99), usually available only to retailers on a 1-per-case basis.

Your ongoing Pathfinder Battles subscription provides the following benefits:

• The right to purchase one limited-edition case premium miniature at 75% off its normal retail price per case ordered.
• Discount code good for 20% off our price on one Encounter Pack per case ordered.
• 20% off our price on paizo.com purchases of loose, unpackaged Pathfinder Battles miniature singles to help you fill in your collection.

We expect all of our Pathfinder Battles sets to sell out relatively quickly, as the red-hot demand for this product has exceeded our expectations. An ongoing Pathfinder Battles subscription is your best chance to get the latest figures before they run out!

Sign up today to ensure that your Pathfinder Battles ongoing subscription starts with the very first release, Heroes & Monsters. Only those who preorder by October 1st and subscribers will be guaranteed a chance to purchase the Huge Black Dragon premium miniature, so we encourage interested parties to preorder or subscribe as soon as they can. We will continue to offer Heroes & Monsters as the starting point of your subscription as long as we can guarantee that we will have enough premium miniatures to cover subscriber demand. When this is no longer the case, we will shift subscriptions to begin with the following release.

We’ve assembled a handy Frequently Asked Questions to cover the subscription plan in greater detail, and plan to monitor the comment thread of this blog post to handle any questions we haven’t thought of yet.

Thanks for your patience with us as we’ve put this new subscription option into place. We hope you’ll consider it worth the wait. You won’t have to wait much longer, though, for the Heroes & Monsters are on the march!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Gen Con Announcement Recap!

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

ENnie Awards: Product of the Year
(for the Advanced Players Guide)

Whew... another Gen Con over and done with! We had a great time at the show, in no small part due to the incredible support of our fans and customers. You all are the BEST!

In a Gen Con filled with highlights, though, for me one of the most incredible moments came about 15 minutes after the Ennie Awards wrapped up, when we went up to the Pathfinder Society Organized Play room to announce to a room of several hundred gamers that we’d won. The uproar of cheers that filled the room when Erik climbed up on his chair and made that announcement was overwhelming. Pictured is one of those many awards—the trophy for Product of the Year (Advanced Player’s Guide) held up with an enormous room of hundreds of Pathfinder Society GMs and players in the background.

We also made a large number of announcements at Gen Con for products coming out in the months ahead. Most of these announcements can be found here and there on paizo.com, but I thought I’d group them all up here in this post so everyone can find out about them at once.

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Coming at the end of the year is Pathfinder Bestiary 3, followed next Spring by the Advanced Race Guide (a big hardcover book that’ll give you new options for ALL of the zero Hit Die races we’ve published to that point, as well as rules for building your own races of any power level), and then next Gen Con with Ultimate Equipment (a hardcover filled to the brim with new toys and magic items for any Pathfinder character).

Pathfinder Adventure Path: At long last, we’ve started the Jade Regent Adventure Path! But once you’re done traveling over the frozen Crown of the World and exploring Tian Xia, be ready next February for some good old-fashioned plundering and mayhem with the pirate-themed Skull & Shackles Adventure Path. And then, next Gen Con, we celebrate five years of Pathfinder and ten years of Paizo by returning to where it all began—the Shattered Star Adventure Path brings it all back to Varisia with a frantic search to be the first to recover and rebuild an ancient Thassilonian artifact—the original Sihedron Symbol—before it’s too late!

Pathfinder Campaign Setting: We sold out of the copies of Inner Sea Magic and Pathfinder Society Field Guide we brought to the convention! Coming in the future in this line is a trip to the north with Lands of the Linnorm Kings, a visit with the daemons and their overlords in Book of the Damned 3: Horsemen of the Apocalypse, our first real excursion into the lands of Tian Xia in the Dragon Empires Gazetteer, and an investigation of ten favorite beasties in Mythological Monsters Revisited. Then, next year, we’ll explore the other planets of Golarion’s solar system in Distant Worlds, look at the big guys in Giants Revisited, look to ancient empires with Lost Kingdoms, explore the pirate and monster infested Isles of the Shackles, and finally take a trip back home with Magnimar: City of Monuments.

Pathfinder Player Companion: After debuting Goblins of Golarion at Gen Con, we’re ready to finish out the three-part exploration of the faiths of the Inner Sea with Faiths of Corruption. Two months later, the Dragon Empires Primer gives players all they need to know to make characters from Tian Xia. And early next year, Pirates of the Inner Sea will finally let you unleash your inner buccaneer!

Pathfinder Modules: We’ll be heading back to Varisia even earlier than Magnimar: City of Monuments and the Shattered Star Adventure Path, though, with Feast of Ravenmoor, a low-level module set in the Varisian hinterlands. Two months later, test your mettle in The Ruby Phoenix Tournament, and then next January find out what our latest RPG Superstar winner, Sam Zeitlin, has in store for you in The Midnight Mirror!

Pathfinder Tales: Dave Gross’s trip into Tian Xia, Master of Devils, launched at Gen Con to great success. Later this year comes Death’s Heretic by Paizo’s own James L. Sutter, followed next year by Hugh Matthews’s Song of the Serpent and Tim Pratt’s City of the Fallen Sky.

Pathfinder Battles: After WizKids releases the initial set of prepainted plastic Pathfinder miniatures of Merisiel, Kyra, Valeros, and Ezren (Pathfinder Beginner Box Heroes, which ties into the upcoming Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Beginner Box), you can look forward first to the 40-miniature set of Heroes and Monsters, to be followed up later next year by the Rise of the Runelords set.

And finally... the announcement that I was the most excited for: a 420-page hardcover compilation of Rise of the Runelords, fully updated to the Pathfinder rules and expanded with new encounters and tons of new artwork, due for release at PaizoCon 5 next June!

James Jacobs
Creative Director

The Miniature (terrain) Building Authority

Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 09:52 AM Pacific

TMBA was showing off its newest and upcoming prepainted terrain pieces. (Monte has a bunch of these, they're really amazing.) http://www.miniaturebuildingauthority.com/

Sean K Reynolds
Developer

Mini Cthulhu figurine

Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 08:11 AM Pacific

Chris Carey found this at a booth that sells only Lovecraft-related things. Now he is paralyzed with fear.

Sean K Reynolds
Developer

Minis by the pound

Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 08:10 AM Pacific

Some minis companies, such as Iron Wind Metals, sell old minis, damaged minis, bulk minis, and bits by the pound. Often you can find very unusual pieces in these bins, such as the stone panther statues, nightmare, and giant war-wagon skull I nabbed.

Sean K Reynolds
Developer

Masterfully painted minis

Sun, Aug 7, 2011 at 11:13 PM Pacific

Reaper painters show off their excellent work.

Sean K Reynolds
Developer

Reaper Foo Dog

Sun, Aug 7, 2011 at 03:12 PM Pacific

Saw this mini while browsing the Reaper booth and am so excited to paint it! Especially with Jade Regent and Tian Xia products being released! I'm imaging it with bright, primary colors and gold accents.

Sara Marie
Customer Carebear

GF9 accessories

Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 06:25 PM Pacific

GaleForce9 has many neat tokens and markers usable for RPGs, as well as flexible printed game mats/maps, and mini bases in bulk.

Sean K Reynolds
Developer

Forest tiles

Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 06:14 PM Pacific

Another cool set of Master Maze pieces from Dwarven Forge.

Sean K Reynolds
Developer

Hellscape!

Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 06:13 PM Pacific

A cool set of Master Maze pieces from Dwarven Forge.

Sean K Reynolds
Developer

Musician Mouslings

Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 01:26 PM Pacific

Sara Marie
Customer Carebear

Bespectacled Mousling

Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 01:25 PM Pacific

Sara Marie
Customer Carebear

New Greens for the littlest heroes: Mouslings!

Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 12:25 PM Pacific

Following in the footsteps of the ENnie award-winning mousing heroes box set, new greens for more adorable mousing minis from Reaper!

Sara Marie
Customer Carebear

Beautiful minis at CoolMiniOrNot

Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 06:00 AM Pacific

Sean K Reynolds
Developer

Perch

Fri, Aug 5, 2011 at 10:22 AM Pacific

Look at what's come to roost in the Paizo Booth. Sweet!

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Hydra and... something

Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 08:35 PM Pacific

Some really freaky minis from GameZone.

Sean K Reynolds
Developer

Lunchtime Painting Party

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

As a miniatures fanatic, I'm always encouraging other people to try painting. Many people complain they don't have enough time, it's hard to paint at home because they have kids or don't have space, and so on. For a time, we had a weekly painting group meeting in the evening after work, but since Gen Con 2009, the move to the then-new building, and due to the frantic pace of publishing increasingly popular books, that fell by the wayside. Recently we started up a lunchtime painting get-together, meeting every Tuesday from noon to 1 in the upstairs conference room. Why Tuesday? Because my high-level drow game is on Tuesday nights, and this gives me an opportunity to get some last-minute painting done for the upcoming game!

Clockwise from the lower left we have Ross (painting some 40K marines), Liz (painting a serpentfolk for the Serpent Skull Adventure Path), Crystal (working on a Privateer gun-toting troll), Sara Marie (painting her PC for Rob's game), Rob (painting his badger mini an appropriate shade of "Rummy Tum Tugger purple"), Andrew (showing his art skills on a Reaper imp), Hyrum's hand (also working on some 40K marines), and the back of my head (applying some metallic base coats to some deep ones).

It's nice to work in a place where painting weird monsters is normal. It's also nice to have a regular schedule to get some painting done, even if it's just a little bit. Even if you don't work for a game company, maybe you can find a time and place to paint. And you might get someone else interested in gaming!

Sean K Reynolds
Developer

Gen Con 2010 Promotional Paizo Mini from Reaper Miniatures

Monday, August 16, 2010

Not only did Reaper Miniatures bring miniatures of the six new Advanced Player's Guide iconics to Gen Con, they brought a promotional mini of half-elven venture-captain Varian Jegarre—a Pathfinder of Egorian and protagonist of Dave Gross's Pathfinder Tales novel Prince of Wolves—which con guests got for free if they spent $50 at the Paizo booth. If you couldn't get one at Gen Con, though, don't worry—we'll have some for sale here at paizo.com in the near future.

One really nice thing about this mini (above and beyond the nice sculpt and detailed face) is it's a one-piece mini, which makes it nice for people new to painting minis—there's no assembly required!

Painted miniature by Meg Maples

Sean K Reynolds
Developer and Miniatures Aficionado

Zirnakaynin Toolkit

Thursday, April 29, 2010

As you may have seen in recent blogs, I like miniatures and props when running a game. As my office is on the ground floor of the Paizo office and my Exiles of Zirnakaynin game is held in our large conference room upstairs, I have to carry this stuff upstairs for every game, and down again afterward. An interest in efficiency and expediency has resulted in me building a set of compartmentalized, easy to carry "units" of game materials. From back to front, the picture shows:

• A cardboard box containing five large cavern terrain pieces created out of extruded polystyrene foam (painted brown, drybrushed light brown to show details, with patches painted green and glow-in-the-dark to represent phosphorescent fungi).
• A craft kit containing cheap plastic minis, wooden tokens representing camping gear and building furnishings, various tokens from Litko Aerosystems, colored magnetic bases for miniatures, cheap plastic animals and bugs for summons, and miscellaneous map scenery like cages, barrels, and skull piles.
• A large plastic storage bin holding my Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook, Bestiary, five foam miniatures trays (containing the PC minis, various NPC minis, monster minis, and common summonable creature minis such as elementals), two GameMastery Flip-Mats, a Pathfinder RPG GM Screen with binder clips to hold stat block pages, dry-erase markers, pens, and more Litko Aerosystems tokens, topped with four smaller foam terrain pieces (the ovoid brownie-looking things) and five larger dinosaur toys for summon monster spells.

Sean K Reynolds
Developer, Pathfinder Chronicles

Things I Learned Running a High-Level Drow Game

Friday, April 23, 2010

Wednesday night we finished session #3 of Exiles of Zirnakaynin, my high-level, all-evil, all-drow-noble campaign. This session started with getting James Jacobs and Rob McCreary caught up to the rest of the group, as they missed session #2 due to bad cases of the sicky sickies. Once sisters Alivorah (James) and Ylvirixna (Rob) reached the pleasure-haven drow city of Far Parathra, they were attacked by mysterious creatures that crawled out of the angles formed by the walls and floors of their hotel rooms. Similar creatures attacked the rest of the PCs at the end of session #2, and most of Wednesday's game involved six individual, simultaneous battles against these creatures, as all the PCs had split up for the night.

Things I learned in last night's session include:

• Even a creature of the Mythos can succumb to a baleful polymorph if you try enough times (ook ook!).
• Remembering you have Combat Casting can be the difference between successfully casting a ground-zero flame strike and eye-rolling failure.
• 14th-level fighters and inquisitors can deal a horrendous amount of damage in one round.
• Fast zombies make fine litter-bearers but poor obstacles against CR 9 opponents.
• Letting a demon possess a PC sometimes means the PC goes crazy and destroys her sister's undead lackeys.

All photos copyright Joshua Frost Photography © 2010

Sean K Reynolds
Developer, Pathfinder Chronicles

Let Me Tell You about My Character...

Monday, March 29, 2010

It seems like I’m the guy who usually ends up running the game, so when Sean announced that he was going to run a high-level campaign where all the PCs would be demon-worshiping drow nobles, I jumped at the chance to play. After all, high-level play, demons, and drow are three of my favorite things! You got a first look into the mayhem of our first session last week when Sean showed off his creepy black light, but today I’m going to tell you about my character. Like it or not!

Photography by James Jacobs

Alivorah Azrinae (CE female drow noble bard 7/demoniac 6) is something of a troublemaker, even in drow society. She's gotten in hot water with the Azrinaes many times in the past for cavorting and fraternizing with other houses—she thinks of herself as a spy, and loves learning secrets about other people and organizations. Her main problem is that she doesn't follow orders well and doesn't like divulging secrets without learning a secret in return—a trait that makes her not very helpful as a spy to anyone but herself. As a demoniac, she bears the mark of Abraxas on her right shoulder as a pale tattoo-like marking. Currently, she's a bit agonized by the fact that she actually knew a few secrets about the attack on the Azrinae family—had she divulged them, she could have possibly saved her house from being exiled. Her main goal now is to see that the Azrinae family gets to return to Zirnakaynin in a greater position of power than before. And if she gets herself a promotion in the family to a position of greater power, all the better!

The attached picture features the miniature I’m using for Alivorah, standing next to her entry on the family tree chart that Sean provided us. The mini (which was painted for me by the always-awesome Stephen Radney-MacFarland, who’s mini-painting skills are SIGNIFICANT) is one I originally used for Jason’s campaign a year or so ago, but since Jason quit running that game, I saw this as a great opportunity to use my cool drow mini again, even though she doesn’t really match the type of gear Alivorah carries. Also, those with keen eyes will note that Alivorah is the sister of Rob McCreary’s character, and that Josh is playing her uncle and Crystal her aunt. Should make for some interesting dynamics around the table!

As for that bit about being a “demoniac,” well... that’s a prestige class I’m taking the opportunity to playtest during this campaign. Originally presented as the 5-level demonic initiate prestige class in Pathfinder Adventure Path #15, this class is being upgraded to a 10-level prestige class and renamed to “demoniac” (the noun definition of which is “a person seemingly possessed by a demon or evil spirit”—it’s not a prestige class for characters who make smart decisions regarding the well-being of their immortal soul). Full details on the demoniac prestige class will appear in the upcoming Lords of Chaos: Book of the Damned Volume 2.

And for those readers who don’t care about my new character (you’re dead to me!), here’s a quick preview of some of the content I’m working on for Lords of Chaos—the beginning of Abraxas’s entry in Chapter 1: The Abyss and its Lords! (Note! The following hasn’t even been through development yet—some elements are certain to change by the time it sees print later this year.)

Abraxas

Master of the Final Incantation

Male demon lord of magic and forbidden lore

Cult

Temple libraries, reliquaries, vaults

Worshipers drow, sorcerers

Minions mariliths, xacarbas (see Pathfinder Bestiary II), serpentine creatures

Sacrifice spellbooks, magic scrolls, those who reveal secrets

Obedience Self-flagellate with a small whip or tree branch, punctuating each stroke with utterances of mystic words of power. Gain a +4 profane bonus on saves against written magical effects, such as sepia snake sigil or symbol of death.

Boons

1: Secret Lore (Sp) Gain one of the following spell-like abilities: identify 3/day, augury 2/day, or illusory script 1/day

2: Heretical Revelation (Su) Up to three times a day you can whisper terrible secrets to an adjacent target as a standard action. The target can resist with a Will save (DC = 10 + 1/2 your HD + your Charisma modifier). If the target fails its save, it is stunned for 1 round, then confused for 1d4 rounds, and then nauseated for 2d6 rounds. This is a mind-affecting effect.

3: Penultimate Incantation (Sp) You affect a single creature within 60 feet with a targeted greater dispel magic. Each spell or effect dispelled inflicts fire damage to the target equal to the result of your caster level check made to dispel the magic.

James Jacobs
Creative Director

Darklands Plus Black Light Equals....

Thursday, March 25, 2010

In a fit of madness, I decided to run a high-level playtest so we could have an ongoing idea of how high-level play works in the Pathfinder RPG. In a fit of double-madness, I decided it would be an "evil" game. Triple-madness means everyone is playing a drow noble from House Azrinae in the Darklands. The result is Exiles of Zirnakaynin.

As I'm a miniatures geek, this meant painting up a bunch of dark elf PCs and NPCs, plus other Darklands monsters and underground terrain. As I'm a science geek, I painted many of these things with fluorescent paint highlights, glow-in-the-dark paint, or glow-in-the-dark varnish so they react to a black light.

This photograph is from our first session, where the PCs (and associated undead and eidolon minions) and soldiers of House Azrinae line up on the eastern wall and tower of the House grounds (with the riding-lizard stable in the foreground) to defend against an attacking force of half-fiend minotaurs, enemy drow soldiers, some treant-like fungus creatures, and a few other surprises not yet on the map.

Sean K Reynolds
Developer, Pathfinder Chronicles

Fan Made: Miniatures

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Illustration by Crystal Frasier

Cave raptors are sated; it's time to blog!

As the new Reaper Pathfinder minis roll into (and just as quickly out of) the warehouse, it makes me appreciate how crafty Paizo fans can be. With all the miniatures, sets, props, and stage plays we've seen kitbashed together around here, it's easy for even the unstoppable Paizo warband to feel humbled. And of all these projects, miniatures occupy a special place in most gamers' hearts. Something about having that 25mm scale representation of your character touches a special, squishy place in every geek's heart. My own collection of painted minis rivals even that of Czarina Catherine the Great (little known fact: Cat was gonzo for 1st Edition, and ran a game of Traveller every other Thursday), but EPA lead regulations and simple goblin humility prevent me from sharing them here.

To get you geared up for your brand new Pathfinder Reaper minis, here's a quick collection of links to help teach and inspire every crafty Paizo fan.

In the last few weeks, the Paizo messageboards have been buzzing with painting tips, tricks, and (most of all), examples. With active discussions and a welcoming group familiar with the Pathfinder line, this is your best place to get started and learn from a friendly group you might already know. Even the official Paizo Paintmeister, Sean K Reynolds contributes to the discussions and offers insider tips. If you don't need to pick up the basics, it never hurts to hobnob with fellow Paizonians, show off your work, bask in the admiration of the faceless masses, and know for just a brief moment how it feels to be a world-famous goblin blogger and production specialist. Also it facilitates that sense of community that makes Paizo fans the best of the best.

If you love the idea of having a tiny metal avatar of yourself, but don't know where to start, then one of the best places to learn is the Miniature Painting Guild. They feature several handy tutorials for all skills levels, as well as forums and a large gallery. My personal favorite: a catalog of "restored" miniatures, rescued from terrible paint jobs by the Guild's loyal members. And if you're simply one of the Paizonians with more time than money, the Miniature Painting Guild also offers professional paintings services on commission.

Once you're comfortable with the basics, Reaper Miniatures offers some of the best figures in the industry, covering hundreds of niches and character archetypes. Searching the Reaper catalog the old-fashioned way, while exciting, can take weeks, so be sure to try out their Figure Finder to pick out exactly the right miniature for your character needs. Or just browse through their Inspirational Gallery for ideas to customize your own painting work. Once you know what models you want, you can order most any of them here in the Paizo storefront and combine them with the latest Pathfinder supplements and GameMastery items you'll doubtless be using with them.

Of course, old-fashioned pewter miniatures are only the beginning: everything from repurposed game tokens and children's toys to your favorite illustrations can be turned into prime gaming minis with a little creativity and know-how. I've seen a man run a game with nothing but miniatures molded by his own, gnarled hands from Sculpy, and my great-grandmother ran tactical table wargames with an entire Napoleonic regiment made from the piled entrails of her fallen enemies. The smell was horrendous, but it gave her a certain psychological edge. As gamers, we share a lot of creative outlets, but few that are so easily appreciated and constantly in play as our minis. For some of us, minis were even that neat little gimmick that first got us into gaming. So lay your hands on some lead and show off your skills in the forums, and let us revel in this common facet of gaming culture. As the immortal Steve Martin put it: Let's get small.

Crystal Frasier
Production Specialist