Rituals and Rivals

Thursday, March 15, 2018

I know there's a lot of excitement in the Pathfinder community these days, and I'm proud to be at the center of it with the most adamantly followed announcements of them all—Jungle of Despair previews!

Prior to Jungle of Despair, which releases in May, the last major jungle content we've released across our myriad Pathfinder lines was the Worldscape series of Pathfinder comics from Dynamite Entertainment, written by our own Chief Creative Officer and Publisher, Erik Mona. These crossover comics find the iconic Pathfinders whisked from Golarion to a strange, jungle demiplane where they battle and ally with such pulp fantasy heroes as John Carter of Mars, Tarzan, Red Sonja, and Fantoma. The demiplane, called the Worldscape, was actually created by the archmage Nex, one of the Pathfinder setting's most infamous wizard-kings, to serve as a staging ground for the greatest warriors of three worlds to assault the unconquerable city of Absalom. Now you can include elements of the Worldscape saga into your campaigns with the final piece of dungeonjungle dressing in the set, the summoning pillar. Modeled off the prominent monoliths scattered throughout the Worldscape, this imposing relic can also serve as any standing stone in your campaign.

No summoning pillar is complete without a powerful spellcaster to active it or bend its ancient magic to her will. One such figure is the serpentfolk wizard, a Medium rare figure based on one of the final villains in the Serpent's Skull Adventure Path, a wizard of the Amphisbaenian Rite.

If serpentfolk aren't your thing, you can instead use the summoning pillar with the morlock cleric, a Medium uncommon figure based on the art for Eudranis, the sample morlock in Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Darklands Revisited. We're not picky about what evil monster person activates the summoning pillar, honest. What's really important is that your PCs get whisked away to a strange jungle of adventure and, I'll venture to say, despair.

Not all your foes need to be spellcasters, however. Why not give your players a hard time with a little bit of friendly assassination? And who better to stab someone in the back than a silent, sneaky elf? The elf assassin figure, a Medium uncommon offering, can easily serve this purpose. Or he can make for a nice rogue of swashbuckler player character. This figure's utility knows no limits!

Next week, we'll delve beneath the Jungle of Despair to look at some of the threats one can find teeming in the Darklands below.

Mark Moreland
Franchise Manager

Fiendgully: The Last Painforest

Monday, March 12, 2018

It's just been a bit since our delayed look at the set's creepy crawlies, but a short detour in our journey through the Jungle of Despair won't prevent me from at least trying to stay on schedule. This week we examine some of the fiends featured in the set: daemons and qlippoth!

Hailing from the desolate plane of Abaddon, daemons serve the Four Horsemen in their efforts to claim as many mortal souls as possible. Like all Outer Planes, Abaddon's primary means of soul acquisition comes from worshipers of neutral evil deities who are judged and sent there upon their mortal demise. But daemons' hunger is rarely sated, and like most fiends, they are always looking for new, less scrupulous means of growing their numbers. The terrifying astradaemon, for example, traverses the River of Souls on the Astral Plane, like a shark, plucking unlucky victims from their rightful path to the afterlife. With a life-draining touch, astradaemons speed their living victims toward death, increasing the prevalence of their prey in the River of Souls. The astradaemon is a Large rare figure.

Exhibiting cephalopod, crustacean, and humanoid features, the menacing venom daemon uses potent poison to bring low its enemies. Native to the swampy or fully aquatic regions of Abaddon, venom daemons target the strongest of their foes first, both as a tactical choice and for the emotional impact when foes see the greatest among them fall. The venom daemon is a Medium rare figure.

Older even than deamonkind are the qlippoth of the Abyss, whose hatred for the myriad demons who now rule their home plane knows no bounds. Last week we looked at the spider-like thulgant qlippoth, but it's just one of the four qlippoths Jungle of Despair has to offer. First this week is the ravenous qlippoth, whose body takes the form of a writhing ball of intertwined intestines and toothy mouths, an anatomy that serves it well as the scavenger of the Abyss. The ravenous qlippoth is a Medium uncommon figure.

The slightly more powerful infectious qlippoth is a manifestation of the Abyss's fecundity, spreading pain and suffering throughout the multiverse. The monocular, tentacle-covered beasts are capable of travel to other planes, where they spread misfortune indiscriminately. The infectious qlippoth is a Large uncommon figure.

Finally, we come to the gongorinan qlippoth, the crablike spawn of the qlippoth lord, Yamasoth, who was himself closely associated with Alaznist, the final Runelord of Wrath. A medium rare figure, the gongorinan qlippoth (along with most of the other figures in this week's preview) is sure to serve Game Masters running the forthcoming Return of the Runelords Adventure Path well.

That's all for now, folks! I hope you survived our glimpse into the Abyss (and Abaddon). Next week we'll return to the jungles of Golarion with a look at some of the mortal rivals your adventurers may encounter along their journey into despair.

Mark Moreland
Franchise Manager

Covered in Creepy Crawlies

Friday, March 2, 2018

Happy Friday, Pathfinders! We're now well on our way through our exploration of the forthcoming Jungle of Despair miniatures set from WizKids, due out in May. This week, I set aside my instinctive reaction to snakes and spiders and show off some of the figures in the set most likely to make your players' skin crawl.

Continuing the set's theme of snakes and serpentfolk, we begin with the metal cobra, a Small figure, this ophidian foe works both as a mechanical guardian left in otherwise abandoned tombs and ruins to protect the treasures within, or a more natural snake encountered in just about any environment (especially for GMs willing to repaint the minis). Released at the common rarity, most collectors will end up with a handful of them in their collection, giving them even more versatility to be used as a lone animal companion or an overwhelming swarm.

The metal cobra isn't the only creepy construct in the set, however. Check out the apparatus of the octopus, a magic item from Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Aquatic Adventures. Capable of carrying two riders, this piece of dungeon dressing could easily serve as both treasure in a jungle grotto or as a means of conveyance along the ocean floor to an isolated jungle island. The figure is 60mm tall, which makes it roughly 11 feet tall at scale, making it a formidable presence on the table.

No trip to the jungle is complete without bugs, and not just any bugs. Giant bugs! Huge bugs! Bugs the size of people! THEM! We could make a dozen sets of nothing but giant bugs and still have species and sizes we never covered, so we have to pick our favorites. Jungle of Despair features the giant ant, a common figure, that can stand in for any number of Medium giant insects. Druids with the vermin familiar class feature from Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Magic can have a Medium giant ant companion at 4th level, making this miniature useful for a handful of players as well as GMs.

The Material Plane isn't the only plane full of creepers and crawlers. The Abyss prides itself on its myriad gross inhabitants, not the least of which are the primeval qlippoth, who hope to eradicate all mortals from existence, thereby ending sin and with it the demons from whom they could reclaim their stolen plane. Jungle of Despair features four qlippoth figures (and a few daemons, of whom the qlippoth also aren't particularly fond), the first of which is the thulgant qlippoth. This horrific, spider-like creature has tentacles and scorpion stingers and an overwhelming hatred for demonkind. Lording over hives of bound servitors in the depths of the Abyss, thulgants make great campaign villains, and at CR 18, present a challenging capstone encounter for experienced adventuring parties. The thulgant qlippoth is a Large rare figure.

Next week, we'll stare fully into the Abyss and see what other qlippoth stare back. Strap in for a journey to the lower planes, as we face off against five jungle fiends! Until then, roll high, and don't split the party!

Mark Moreland
Franchise Manager

Enter the Jungle of Despair!

Monday, January 22, 2018

Greetings, Pathfinders!

It's been a while since the last Pathfinder Battles preview blog, in part because the blog, like the proverbial torch, has passed to a new patron: Me! As Paizo's Franchise Manager, I work closely with all of our licensors to ensure that their products are the highest quality and accurately reflect both the Pathfinder and Starfinder brands. This includes, of course, the Pathfinder Battles line of pre-painted plastic miniatures from our longtime partner, WizKids!

And what better debut blog content than the announcement of a new set?

In May, WizKids and Paizo will be releasing the fourteenth (!) full set in the line: Pathfinder Battles: Jungle of Despair. This set features 44 randomized figures, plus six new pieces of set dressing, all themed around jungle exploration, ancient ruins, and (mostly) natural threats. As with past sets, those fans who purchase a full case of Jungle of Despair will be eligible to purchase a Huge case-incentive figure, and man is this one fun!

Hydras are a classic jungle threat, dating back to ancient Greek mythology, and we're happy to introduce the legendary beast to Pathfinder Battles with this incredible figure. While it's impressive on its own, what really makes this sculpt exciting are its interchangeable heads. That's right. When your neophyte adventurers chop one of the beast's five heads off without proper application of fire to the writhing stub, you can simply replace the single head with two, representing in exquisite plastic detail the growing threat facing the poor player characters. Check out both the 5- and 10-headed versions of the Hydra!

The hydra isn't the only serpentine threat found in Jungle of Despair, either! The featured villains in this set are none other than the sinister, ancient serpentfolk, who ruled the world for thousands of years before the advent of pesky, warm-blooded humanity. The Serpentfolk Cleric, below, is just one of the new serpentfolk figures in the set (stay tuned for previews of the rest in the coming weeks). The Serpentfolk Cleric is a Medium uncommon figure.

Not all serpentine threats in the set are members of the psychic ophidian race, however. Some, like the Hollow Serpent, are undead monstrosities the serpentfolk create to defeat their foes. Animated from the sloughed-off skin of a giant snake, the Hollow Serpent is a perfect high-level threat for any serpentfolk-based campaign (including the Serpent's Skull Adventure Path). The Hollow Serpent is a Large Rare figure.

The jungle also serves as home to countless natural inhabitants, including innocent animals and vermin just trying to get by in a harsh, unforgiving world. Take this Giant Leech, for example. It doesn't mean you any harm, really. It's just hungry. Why'd you have to go swimming through that murky water in the first place? You had it coming, honestly. The Giant Leech is a Medium Common figure, meaning you're likely to get a few of them in your collection, and you can fit eight of them around the typical player character for some bloodsucking fun.

Finally, we have the mischievous Tanuki—raccoon-like monstrous humanoids inspired by Japanese mythology and common in the temperate forests of Tian Xia. While they often appear in disguise as other creatures (especially when infiltrating sake-filled festivities in human civilizations), this figure represents the creature as it's most likely to appear in combat against the player characters. The Tanuki is just one of several protectors of the natural world found in Jungle of Despair, but certainly the cutest! The Tanuki is a Medium Uncommon figure.

That's it for this week's preview! Fans with max ranks in Perception may note that WizKids previewed all of these figures last fall when they announced the set, but have no fear! Next week it's all new reveals — When Plants Attack!

Pathfinder Battles: Jungle of Despair releases in May 2018 and can be preordered now!

Until next week,

Mark Moreland
Franchise Manager