Things That Should Not Be

Friday, April 3, 2015

We love H. P. Lovecraft. The old gentleman not only wrote some of the most chilling and flat-out awesome horror stories of the Twentieth Century, but he also knew how to get his monster on. Fantasy author China Miéville, one of my personal favorite modern writers, was one of the first to point out to me that fantasy fiction monsters could basically be divided into pre-Lovecraft and post-Lovecraft, and my own obsession with reading early Twentieth Century genre stuff suggests he has a point. Before Lovecraft, monsters in fiction were usually giant animals, human-animal hybrids, or basically animals with multiple limbs. A few writers, like Edgar Rice Burroughs, mixed things up enough to invent awesome stuff like plant men with mouths on the palms of their hands, but for the most part you were looking at a field of giant animals.

Lovecraft changed all of that with an assortment of alien, eldritch beings designed to scare the crap out of his protagonists—and his readers. Many of those monsters have gone on to inspire tabletop games and the gamers who make them, and we here at Paizo are very much in thrall of Lovecraft's creations. Judging by the response to our past dabbling with his themes and creatures, such as the now-classic Greg A. Vaughan Carrion Crown adventure "Wake of the Watcher" and the monster article that accompanied it, Pathfinder players also love his creations.

So it seemed like a good idea to get some of them out in prepainted plastic.

Here then are three Lovecraftian monsters from June's Dungeons Deep set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted fantasy miniatures.

One of Lovecraft's most famous monsters is the brain-stealing Mi-Go, a flying alien creature that just loves to experiment on mankind. We've featured Mi-Go in a few Pathfinder adventures to date (notably in James Jacobs's Emerald Spire Superdungeon level), and in the Iron Gods Adventure Path's awesomely named "Valley of the Brain Collectors". The Mi-Go in Dungeons Deep is a Medium, uncommon creature.

The Elder Thing, or Old One, is one of the foremost stars of Lovecraft's famous novella "At the Mountains of Madness," one of our favorite of his tales. It was thus a certainty that we'd get to them as prepainted miniatures. The Elder Thing, like the Mi-Go, appears in Bestiary 4, where we learn that in addition to having the ability to fly around in outer space, Elder Things "possess a boundless capacity for war and egotism." The Elder Thing is a Medium, uncommon creature.

The Yithians starred in Lovecraft's tale "The Shadow out of Time," where they play the role of a prehistoric time-traveling race responsible for populating much of the Earth. Bestiary 3 describes them as planetary explorers eager to discover new worlds, where they fancy swapping minds with natives to experience strange planets from a local perspective. The Yithian, from my perspective, is one of the most impressive-looking figures in the set, a true "WTF" alien to drop on your unsuspecting player characters. The Yithian is a Large, uncommon figure.

That's it for this week! Tune in next Friday for another glimpse at the horrors and wonders yet to come in the Dungeons Deep set!

Erik Mona
Publisher

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Tags: Dungeons Deep Miniatures Pathfinder Battles
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I love Lovecraft!

At rarity uncommon one can expect to get a few of these critters!

More Lovecraft please!

Shadow Lodge

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder LO Special Edition, PF Special Edition Subscriber

First gnolls, now lovecraft. You sir have being exceptionally kind to me. I have asked time and time again for a Mi-go and despaired it was always going to be in a later set. I cannot tell y ou how excited I am to see it in this set AND based on an awesome picture. It looks absolutely magnificent, well the render does, and the GAMA trade show pics certainly did from what I could see. Uncommon as well, so win-win!

Then I see an elder thing! Another magnificent lovecraftian beastie and another long awaited addition to my plastic men (as my wife calls them). Also uncommon, wow this is too good to be true.

Glad to see the Yithian as well, doesn't excite me as much, always thought the story did them far more justice than the art. Still it's another for my collection.

Gugs, hounds of tandalos, elder things, migo, yithians, moon beasts, denizens of leng. the list keeps growing and I'm glad.


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WOW! These are awesome! I love the strange and alien minis. I would buy a whole case of mins like this if I could.

I will take these mins over farm animals any day! This really is looking to be the best set yet. The bar really looking to have been raised. Totally liking the unlinking from the AP themes. =)


Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Excellent minis!

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Maps Subscriber

Excellent. Love Lovecraft...


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I want more giant animals and less silly-looking tentacles, personally - but I'm pleased that those who disagree with me will get some of their fill.

Software Developer

The Yithian looks like it's so done. "You did WHAT? This planet is sick, I'm out of here."

Yithians are serious business.


I also love them! It's great to bring in miniatures such as these into the mix. For me anything different is good as I've been collecting minis forever. Although a great new bugbear sculpt is cool, I love these better as I have NONE of these! I always want original, new creatures made.


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Pathfinder Maps Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

I love me some Lovecraft, too. HOWEVER... I'm not playing Cthulhu or similar horror games. I'm playing Pathfinder and would appreciate minis that are more common that I could use around the table more often than these unique figures. Please put out a one-off Lovecraft set if you must feed your passions for that style of miniature instead of releasing these all but useless minis that I will likely never use. Wizkids and Paizo put out the best painted minis on the market - it would just be nice to get some utility out of the game product instead of just collecting dust on the shelf. Peace.


The Mi-Go did not appear in James Jacobs Emerald Spire level but in his Thornkeep level.
Elder things appeared in his level (thank you for providing a figure, I'll take 3)
I wouldn't mind a Xiomorn to go with that ;-)

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

I have fond memories of the thornkeep mi-go. As a GM.
"We've lost Bard-2!"

"The mi-go has cleared the dungeon. The mi-Go has cleared the dungeon."

Grand Lodge

Aghhhhh!!! Goat eyes!!!! :(


kaishakunin wrote:
I love me some Lovecraft, too. HOWEVER... I'm not playing Cthulhu or similar horror games. I'm playing Pathfinder and would appreciate minis that are more common that I could use around the table more often than these unique figures. Please put out a one-off Lovecraft set if you must feed your passions for that style of miniature instead of releasing these all but useless minis that I will likely never use. Wizkids and Paizo put out the best painted minis on the market - it would just be nice to get some utility out of the game product instead of just collecting dust on the shelf. Peace.

I couldn't care less about Lovecraft in general, and I don't have much of an urge to buy these particular minis, but having a few "freaks" in a collection is useful. Having a handful of "WTF is that?" minis fills a void where you need "a thing reaches out from beyond the portal" or "the evil wizard polymorphs the king into a block of writhing... stuff". I'm just saying that while I've already got my "freak" supply, Paizo hasn't done very many of these, so I'm personally supportive of them. Variety good.


I just can't get over this strange feeling that I wasn't meant to know about this stuff....


Excellent minis indeed!

AP Spoliers:
Just played through Book 4 of Iron Gods.
Yep. some of those look familairish...

Grand Lodge

To agree with arbados, to get monsters that are truly nothing like anything made to date, and at this stage in the game, is truly exceptional. Bravo!


I love this update. These minis will be great additions to the prepainted minis line. Good stuff as always.


My Lovecraftian bent is howling like a hound of Tindalos at these.

Silver Crusade

Staph. My wallet has yet to recover from the last set. D:

Contributor

James also used Mi-Go in the third level of Thornkeep, and who could forget Greg Vauhin's use of them in his Carrion Crown book?

This blog alone is going to require that I buy a brick of this set. Even if I have to sell a few organs to do it.

Anyone at Paizo interested in buying a kidney? ;-P

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Cat-thulhu wrote:
Then I see an elder thing! Another magnificent lovecraftian beastie and another long awaited addition to my plastic men (as my wife calls them). Also uncommon, wow this is too good to be true.

All I'll say is that no image of the front of this mini will ever do it justice. You really need a top-down view to appreciate... it.

Shadow Lodge

These all look awesome, and I'd get them just for displaying! However, I've gotta ask a question, and I apologize if this seems ridiculous, but... Is Pathfinder Battles just the name for the line of miniatures used mainly to enhance games of the Pathfinder RPG, or does it contain its own rules set for battling with the miniatures alone? Like is it it's own separate game that you just happen to be able to use with the full RPG, if you'd like?

Silver Crusade Contributor

Jason Smith 617 wrote:
These all look awesome, and I'd get them just for displaying! However, I've gotta ask a question, and I apologize if this seems ridiculous, but... Is Pathfinder Battles just the name for the line of miniatures used mainly to enhance games of the Pathfinder RPG, or does it contain its own rules set for battling with the miniatures alone? Like is it it's own separate game that you just happen to be able to use with the full RPG, if you'd like?

Unfortunately, no. Only for RPG use, no self-enclosed game.

I wish it had one, like the original D&D Minis did. But I stopped liking that one when it moved away from morale and stopped closely mimicking the RPG stat blocks. :(


The DDM 1.0 was fantastic and a similar slimmed down ruleset for a Pathfinder miniatures skirmish game would be great. Sadly no such game currently exists.

Silver Crusade Contributor

Occasionally I think about putting together Harbinger-style cards for the newer releases.

In fact, given how many of the PFB miniatures are based on established statblocks, it might be interesting to think about...


Nothing is stopping you or anyone else from making up your own skirmish game rules and stats....


Cleanthes wrote:
Nothing is stopping you or anyone else from making up your own skirmish game rules and stats....

Except my lack of skills in the Game Design field. ;-)


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Mi-go???

Me get!!!


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danielc wrote:
Cleanthes wrote:
Nothing is stopping you or anyone else from making up your own skirmish game rules and stats....
Except my lack of skills in the Game Design field. ;-)

Everybody starts somewhere.

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