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