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
