Iconic Evolution: Amiri

Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

It's been 12 years since famed artist Wayne Reynolds designed the core iconic characters we've all come to know and love. When we knew a second edition was on the horizon, we asked him to update them for the new era of Pathfinder. Last summer, Paizo's publisher and chief creative officer Erik Mona met with Wayne at Paizo's Gen Con booth to discuss his creative process. Check out this short video of their conversation for a glimpse into the mind of Pathfinder's most iconic visual artist and the first official look at the iconic barbarian, Amiri!

Each week, we'll take a look at a different updated iconic with Erik and Wayne, so stay tuned.

Mark Moreland
Franchise Manager

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Tags: Amiri Barbarians Classes Iconic Evolutions Iconics Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Pathfinder Second Edition Wayne Reynolds
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Shadow Lodge

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Hmm, completely change the established world with an edition change? Has that ever worked before?

Shadow Lodge

TOZ wrote:
Hmm, completely change the established world with an edition change? Has that ever worked before?

Well... Dungeons and Dragons does this with their Forgotten Realms setting. Every new edition they have some major event that causes massive changes to their world. They kill off some of their deities, re-define how magic works, etc. Not that I'm advocating for this necessarily, but it's not a completely wrong direction to go.

With Paizo's iconics, I think it is a little strange that they stay the same. They did advance the timeline didn't they? How many years have passed? Leaving them unchanged, they are saying their iconics aren't really people in the story of Golarion. Instead, they are example PCs. Something in the rulebook to be ignored as they are not part of the story.

Shadow Lodge

I guess that is the point of them though. They are PC stand ins, not story characters, not npcs. So in that vein of thinking, it makes sense to keep them the same. They aren't supposed to exist in world, just be an example.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

That's always been true, though - Paizo has always been explicit that the Iconics are example PCs, not people in Golarion's story.

Personally I would have missed the Iconics if they had been changed; they have a lot of nostalgia value for me.


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I guess the question is if you "graduate" an iconic to "no-longer being an iconic"you let that character be an NPC in the setting who you can now tell stories about. I mean, since the iconic alchemist got replaced now we can tell stories about Damiel (even make him the villain in something, if you wanted.)


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Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I just figured there's some ancient Azlanti or Thassilonian vat somewhere pumping out the Iconics, and when they look kinda 'funky' it's imperfections from the creation process.

Alternatively, the Iconics are really bored deities who are playing World of PathfinderCraft and these are their various characters.

EDIT: And the reason they're sub-optimal is because otherwise it'd be BORING.


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Wow. Amiri went from Iconic to Ironic overnight.

The implication here is that only familiar fantasy-barbarian archetypes like Conan the Cimmerian are allowed to be tall, strong, and fierce -- and to look impressive while doing so.

Silver Crusade

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TheFourthMan wrote:

Wow. Amiri went from Iconic to Ironic overnight.

The implication here is that only familiar fantasy-barbarian archetypes like Conan the Cimmerian are allowed to be tall, strong, and fierce -- and to look impressive while doing so.

Wat?

The implication is the exact opposite. You don't have to look like Conan to be a Barbarian.

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

She looks strong and fierce enough to me.


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What spell would she need to cure her stroke so her face doesn't sag to the left like that?


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Man, it's like people are having a competition to come up with the most hateful possible thing to say about WAR's art...

Silver Crusade

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MaxAstro wrote:
Man, it's like people are having a competition to come up with the most hateful possible thing to say about WAR's art...

And said competition is exclusive here, leaving Fumbus, Ezren, and Harsk out in the cold.

Hmmm, I ponder why?


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Rysky wrote:
MaxAstro wrote:
Man, it's like people are having a competition to come up with the most hateful possible thing to say about WAR's art...

And said competition is exclusive here, leaving Fumbus, Ezren, and Harsk out in the cold.

Hmmm, I ponder why?

It's pretty straight forward. This is the most changed piece of the bunch so far. You could argue that Ezren's scale change is actually the biggest change as he's going from about 8 heads tall to 6 or so, but that's a more difficult change to notice than we see here.

Silver Crusade

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ErichAD wrote:
Rysky wrote:
MaxAstro wrote:
Man, it's like people are having a competition to come up with the most hateful possible thing to say about WAR's art...

And said competition is exclusive here, leaving Fumbus, Ezren, and Harsk out in the cold.

Hmmm, I ponder why?

It's pretty straight forward. This is the most changed piece of the bunch so far. You could argue that Ezren's scale change is actually the biggest change as he's going from about 8 heads tall to 6 or so, but that's a more difficult change to notice than we see here.

Her changes are on par are less than Harsk's, whose skin is darker, he's younger, a redhead, uses axes now, and traded his leather for layers of cloth and a vibrant sash.

Old Harsk

New Harsk


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Honestly I think it comes down to how unsettling Amiri is in this artwork. People are used to fantasy heroes being attractive - not even in a sexualized way, necessarily; there's just an assumption that heroic characters will be nice to look at. Or at least, not uncomfortable to look at.

And Amiri is uncomfortable to look at; I don't think there's any question there. Feral and uncivilized. To some people, I think that's automatic grounds for "not a hero" or at least "something wrong with her". It's a kind of uncanny valley.

All of this is to say, I don't entirely judge people for having that initial negative reaction - I think it's what the artwork is supposed to evoke. But I do a little bit judge people not being able to see past that.

Liberty's Edge

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Yeah, I'm in agreement with MaxAstro. This version of Amiri is unsettling, with a feral madness shining from her eyes. As I said in one of my earlier posts, she very much looks like someone capable of suddenly and completely losing it and killing people in a violent rage at any moment (not that she necessarily will...but she could if she decided to).

That's disturbing and I don't blame people for being disturbed by it. I just also think it's a totally reasonable look for Amiri to possess.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Yep.

Amiri, whose schtick is literally flying into a psychotic rage in combat- and who once massacred a solid chunk of her own tribe that way- should not be someone who looks all that easy to get along with at first glance.

She was told all of her life that she wasn't good enough to be a warrior...and even after she went out and proved it, she was told, 'no, not your job."

She was likely surly and hard to get along with for the people who raised her- now?

Now I think she has an easy time getting elbow room when she wants it- which is probably most of the time.


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It is pretty interesting to me how many people are interpreting "frayed and on edge, just trying to hold it together lest you snap and lash out" as something other than that.


Deadmanwalking wrote:

Yeah, I'm in agreement with MaxAstro. This version of Amiri is unsettling, with a feral madness shining from her eyes. As I said in one of my earlier posts, she very much looks like someone capable of suddenly and completely losing it and killing people in a violent rage at any moment (not that she necessarily will...but she could if she decided to).

That's disturbing and I don't blame people for being disturbed by it. I just also think it's a totally reasonable look for Amiri to possess.

I like the feral look. I like her expression.

I think it could work as well on a body that doesn't look as scrawny.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

It could, but I think Amiri being not super hulked out adds to it. It makes your brain work harder to understand why she is scary, which makes her scarier, if that makes sense.

Like, if she was all muscles, it would be kind of a known fear. Like "oh, I'm scared of her because she could obviously just reach over and crush my head with a hand."

But with her being a bit wiry... There's this little mental hitch where it's like "She terrifying and I don't understand why. She looks like I could knock her over with one good punch so why am I shaking in my boots?"

I feel like that is exactly the kind of fear Amiri should provoke. That little voice in the back of your head that says "this person is dangerous in ways you don't consciously understand".

Also I think from Amiri's backstory she should be the kind of person who tends to get underestimated based on their size.

Dark Archive

MaxAstro wrote:

Honestly I think it comes down to how unsettling Amiri is in this artwork. People are used to fantasy heroes being attractive - not even in a sexualized way, necessarily; there's just an assumption that heroic characters will be nice to look at. Or at least, not uncomfortable to look at.

And Amiri is uncomfortable to look at; I don't think there's any question there. Feral and uncivilized. To some people, I think that's automatic grounds for "not a hero" or at least "something wrong with her". It's a kind of uncanny valley.

All of this is to say, I don't entirely judge people for having that initial negative reaction - I think it's what the artwork is supposed to evoke. But I do a little bit judge people not being able to see past that.

As many people Ive talked to have said if this had been her art to begin with nobody would be having an issue it's the 10 years of looking one way then suddenly going to the new look (One that to a lot of people looks more sickly as opposed to Harsk who actually looks healthier) that has thrown people.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

That's fair, it is jarring. I think it's easier for me to accept because it feels more like "this is what Amiri always should have looked like".

Paizo Employee

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MaxAstro wrote:

[...]

But with her being a bit wiry... There's this little mental hitch where it's like "She terrifying and I don't understand why. She looks like I could knock her over with one good punch so why am I shaking in my boots?"

I feel like that is exactly the kind of fear Amiri should provoke. That little voice in the back of your head that says "this person is dangerous in ways you don't consciously understand".

Also I think from Amiri's backstory she should be the kind of person who tends to get underestimated based on their size.

I think that's definitely one thing her new art does, is support her backstory much better than the old art.

Amiri before was basically a marginally-less-busty Red Sonja clone with a Conan skin. How do you reconcile that with her backstory? She was clearly the physical match and then some of any of the other Pathfinder iconics. It doesn't seem terribly believable that everyone would have mocked and doubted the prowess of this woman.

As we've already seen though, everyone is willing to mock this version of Amiri. "She's too scrawny to be a barbarian" or "She's too sickly-looking to be intimidating", so on and so forth. This thread almost becomes a microcosm of Amiri's own life as a group of (almost exclusively men from what I've seen) imply that the woman depicted in the new art isn't capable of being a badass. Clearly the only way she could be threatening is if she was bustier and beefier.

The fact that so many people started channeling Six Bears tribesmen by immediately piling on mocking and deriding this version of Amiri as not looking "enough like a barbarian" is to me a pretty clear signal that this art does exactly what it should be doing.


Rysky wrote:
ErichAD wrote:
Rysky wrote:
MaxAstro wrote:
Man, it's like people are having a competition to come up with the most hateful possible thing to say about WAR's art...

And said competition is exclusive here, leaving Fumbus, Ezren, and Harsk out in the cold.

Hmmm, I ponder why?

It's pretty straight forward. This is the most changed piece of the bunch so far. You could argue that Ezren's scale change is actually the biggest change as he's going from about 8 heads tall to 6 or so, but that's a more difficult change to notice than we see here.

Her changes are on par are less than Harsk's, whose skin is darker, he's younger, a redhead, uses axes now, and traded his leather for layers of cloth and a vibrant sash.

Old Harsk

New Harsk

I'm not sure how much of the Harsk changes to chalk up to the change in color saturation and value range between PF2 and PF1 illustrations. I made a comment about it in one of the update pages but nobody seemed interested in the topic.

The redder hair and the deeper tan both appear to be the same change, and one that appears in all the new illustrations. He's still wearing leather, so that's off the list. And his crossbow is now on his back rather than in his hands. These are minor changes compared to changing a character physically to a point that the reason for their prowess now needs to be supernatural in nature, and also preventing training and experience from improving their physique. That's a world logic shift rather than a pallet shift. I compare it to the Ezren changes because the size shift relative to his accessories and his over sized head both give a more cartoony feel. A genre shift like that is on par with a world logic shift. Compared to those two, Harsk is like a player 2 recolor.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Ssalarn wrote:
The fact that so many people started channeling Six Bears tribesmen by immediately piling on mocking and deriding this version of Amiri as not looking "enough like a barbarian" is to me a pretty clear signal that this art does exactly what it should be doing.

Well said! I hadn't even thought of that angle.

Liberty's Edge

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MaxAstro wrote:
Ssalarn wrote:
The fact that so many people started channeling Six Bears tribesmen by immediately piling on mocking and deriding this version of Amiri as not looking "enough like a barbarian" is to me a pretty clear signal that this art does exactly what it should be doing.
Well said! I hadn't even thought of that angle.

Yeah, this. Her looking like she can't even lift her sword, like she's nowhere near strong enough to be a warrior, is a big part of her backstory. This look really leans into that in a good way.


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Ssalarn wrote:
The fact that so many people started channeling Six Bears tribesmen by immediately piling on mocking and deriding this version of Amiri as not looking "enough like a barbarian" is to me a pretty clear signal that this art does exactly what it should be doing.

I do not mind the new image of her, but what I do mind is the new ideals that Paizo is trying to push by Politically Correcting their content with PF2e. The bears tribe shunned Amiri's attempts to become a warrior because she was a Woman. NOT because she was a runt, NOT because she looked sickly and weak, NOT because she wasn't intimidating enough. She was rejected for being a warrior BECAUSE she was a woman.

All of the challenges that she had fought, all of the trials and tribulations she faced against, everything she had to overcome during her character development, EVERYTHING is effectively deleted because it's "wrong think" and Paizo doesn't like it.

So, instead of actually working on her character development with what they've already had - they turned back around and decided to make her a "hiccup" instead of keep going with what they had.

They chose Political Correctness over Character Development.


Ssalarn wrote:

Amiri before was basically a marginally-less-busty Red Sonja clone with a Conan skin. How do you reconcile that with her backstory? She was clearly the physical match and then some of any of the other Pathfinder iconics. It doesn't seem terribly believable that everyone would have mocked and doubted the prowess of this woman.

To me, those two images give very different impressions. The first, which I believe is the official PF1 Iconic, already seems small enough to get across the "no one believed she was a badass" aspect. The second, which is the same character, doesn't: I agree she does look like a badass. Much less surprise there. Some combination of pose and art style, I think.

Liberty's Edge

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TheMonkeyFish wrote:
I do not mind the new image of her, but what I do mind is the new ideals that Paizo is trying to push by Politically Correcting their content with PF2e.

I...uh...what?

TheMonkeyFish wrote:
The bears tribe shunned Amiri's attempts to become a warrior because she was a Woman. NOT because she was a runt, NOT because she looked sickly and weak, NOT because she wasn't intimidating enough. She was rejected for being a warrior BECAUSE she was a woman.

Yes, absolutely. It was indeed because she was a woman. But these things don't contradict each other. Indeed, they feed into each other, as overlapping prejudices often do.

But people weren't actually saying that her looking sickly and un-intimidating was why she was shunned and treated badly. I certainly wasn't. I was saying it played a supporting role in that, but mainly that it might be why they mocked her to her face, something one might not do if she were more physically imposing.

TheMonkeyFish wrote:
All of the challenges that she had fought, all of the trials and tribulations she faced against, everything she had to overcome during her character development, EVERYTHING is effectively deleted because it's "wrong think" and Paizo doesn't like it.

They aren't. Her backstory hasn't changed. The motivations haven't changed at all. All that's changed is her picture. How could a picture change them?

Also, I don't think downplaying sexism is 'political correctness' so I'm confused why you're using that term for this issue even if the issue actually existed.

TheMonkeyFish wrote:
So, instead of actually working on her character development with what they've already had - they turned back around and decided to make her a "hiccup" instead of keep going with what they had.

Again, there is no retcon here. No change in people's motivations. That is simply not a thing that has occurred and I'm confused why you think it has.

TheMonkeyFish wrote:
They chose Political Correctness over Character Development.

No. They didn't.

Paizo Employee

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Or they decided that they didn't need to rely on cringey fantasy tropes where every woman is an Olympian goddess? And lets not forget this fact: SHE'S STILL A WOMAN. Her appearance has just been modified per the input of actual women the artist spoke to and with better integration of her own backstory.

Why did it ever matter that Amiri's tribesmen were "enthralled by her beauty", other than reinforcing tired and wrong-headed tropes about how women need to be both beautiful and talented/strong/clever/etc. in order to have worth or stand out? Why does Amiri being adjusted to not meet this dated fantasy standard that all warrior women have to be a specific type of "attractive" apparently detract from her femininity and struggles in your eyes? Because nothing about her story changed. The only thing that changed is how she looks, and those changes were established per her own established heritage and the input of female players.


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TheMonkeyFish wrote:
Ssalarn wrote:
The fact that so many people started channeling Six Bears tribesmen by immediately piling on mocking and deriding this version of Amiri as not looking "enough like a barbarian" is to me a pretty clear signal that this art does exactly what it should be doing.

I do not mind the new image of her, but what I do mind is the new ideals that Paizo is trying to push by Politically Correcting their content with PF2e. The bears tribe shunned Amiri's attempts to become a warrior because she was a Woman. NOT because she was a runt, NOT because she looked sickly and weak, NOT because she wasn't intimidating enough. She was rejected for being a warrior BECAUSE she was a woman.

All of the challenges that she had fought, all of the trials and tribulations she faced against, everything she had to overcome during her character development, EVERYTHING is effectively deleted because it's "wrong think" and Paizo doesn't like it.

So, instead of actually working on her character development with what they've already had - they turned back around and decided to make her a "hiccup" instead of keep going with what they had.

They chose Political Correctness over Character Development.

I think that's a gross disservice to Paizo's approach. It doesn't even make sense to me - the original story is more of a "Politically Correct" approach, if you want to look at it that way. It's a classic "woman proves to the stupid macho guys that she's tougher than they are" story. The tribe isn't PC, but the character and the story could easily be seen that way.

It does bring out a counter to the "she has to look weak for the story to make sense" argument though. I don't think there's anything in the story that suggests she looked weak, much less that she was. She had proved herself and outdid the male warriors, they just didn't care because she was a woman.
They thought she couldn't wield the giant's sword and they were right - without Rage, she couldn't. Neither looking nor being weak is part of her backstory.


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Ssalarn wrote:

Or they decided that they didn't need to rely on cringey fantasy tropes where every woman is an Olympian goddess? And lets not forget this fact: SHE'S STILL A WOMAN. Her appearance has just been modified per the input of actual women the artist spoke to and with better integration of her own backstory.

Why did it ever matter that Amiri's tribesmen were "enthralled by her beauty", other than reinforcing tired and wrong-headed tropes about how women need to be both beautiful and talented/strong/clever/etc. in order to have worth or stand out? Why does Amiri being adjusted to not meet this dated fantasy standard that all warrior women have to be a specific type of "attractive" apparently detract from her femininity and struggles in your eyes? Because nothing about her story changed. The only thing that changed is how she looks, and those changes were established per her own established heritage and the input of female players.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not at all concerned with her attractiveness (or her bust size, that someone kept bringing up in an earlier post).

I just think she should look a little closer to the 18 strength she's supposed to start with. Before raging.

Paizo Employee

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thejeff wrote:

It does bring out a counter to the "she has to look weak for the story to make sense" argument though. I don't think there's anything in the story that suggests she looked weak, much less that she was. She had proved herself and outdid the male warriors, they just didn't care because she was a woman.

They thought she couldn't wield the giant's sword and they were right - without Rage, she couldn't. Neither looking nor being weak is part of her backstory.

I, personally, don't think this version of Amiri looks particularly weak. She looks pale, which could make more sense given her geographical origins, and she looks a bit haunted, also appropriate for someone who murdered a bunch of family members when she lost her cool, but not weak.

Does she look like someone a male chauvinist might pick out as a target for derision? Yes. Does she look like she could arrange said chauvinist's teeth across a 20-foot arc with her fist? Also yes. Note that quite a few female multisport Olympians also have compact, tightly-muscled frames.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Yeah, she doesn't look physically weak to me, either, just not traditionally muscled. She looks tightly wound - like her whole body is spring loaded.

Liberty's Edge

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MaxAstro wrote:

It could, but I think Amiri being not super hulked out adds to it. It makes your brain work harder to understand why she is scary, which makes her scarier, if that makes sense.

Like, if she was all muscles, it would be kind of a known fear. Like "oh, I'm scared of her because she could obviously just reach over and crush my head with a hand."

But with her being a bit wiry... There's this little mental hitch where it's like "She terrifying and I don't understand why. She looks like I could knock her over with one good punch so why am I shaking in my boots?"

I feel like that is exactly the kind of fear Amiri should provoke. That little voice in the back of your head that says "this person is dangerous in ways you don't consciously understand".

Also I think from Amiri's backstory she should be the kind of person who tends to get underestimated based on their size.

That is right on the spot and reminded me of Joe Pesci's character in Casino.

Liberty's Edge

ErichAD wrote:
Rysky wrote:
ErichAD wrote:
Rysky wrote:
MaxAstro wrote:
Man, it's like people are having a competition to come up with the most hateful possible thing to say about WAR's art...

And said competition is exclusive here, leaving Fumbus, Ezren, and Harsk out in the cold.

Hmmm, I ponder why?

It's pretty straight forward. This is the most changed piece of the bunch so far. You could argue that Ezren's scale change is actually the biggest change as he's going from about 8 heads tall to 6 or so, but that's a more difficult change to notice than we see here.

Her changes are on par are less than Harsk's, whose skin is darker, he's younger, a redhead, uses axes now, and traded his leather for layers of cloth and a vibrant sash.

Old Harsk

New Harsk

I'm not sure how much of the Harsk changes to chalk up to the change in color saturation and value range between PF2 and PF1 illustrations. I made a comment about it in one of the update pages but nobody seemed interested in the topic.

The redder hair and the deeper tan both appear to be the same change, and one that appears in all the new illustrations. He's still wearing leather, so that's off the list. And his crossbow is now on his back rather than in his hands. These are minor changes compared to changing a character physically to a point that the reason for their prowess now needs to be supernatural in nature, and also preventing training and experience from improving their physique. That's a world logic shift rather than a pallet shift. I compare it to the Ezren changes because the size shift relative to his accessories and his over sized head both give a more cartoony feel. A genre shift like that is on par with a world logic shift. Compared to those two, Harsk is like a player 2 recolor.

I was more disturbed by Harsk's new looks than Amiri's.

Because where he looked like a gruff but kind older brother, he does not look human-like anymore.


That's fair. I couldn't really guess at what a head turn of the character would be. I couldn't work it out before either and really don't know what Pathfinder dwarves are supposed to look like.


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Ssalarn wrote:
Note that quite a few female multisport Olympians also have compact, tightly-muscled frames.

Do they lift as much, or any way match, the feats of their muscled up strongest male competitors? I already know the compact, tightly muscled men don't. They also shouldn't have 18 strength scores.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Xenocrat wrote:
Ssalarn wrote:
Note that quite a few female multisport Olympians also have compact, tightly-muscled frames.
Do they lift as much, or any way match, the feats of their muscled up strongest male competitors? I already know the compact, tightly muscled men don't. They also shouldn't have 18 strength scores.

An 18 just means she can lift 300 pounds over her head under the RAW. At 101 pounds, she'd be carrying a Medium load which offers mild encumbrance.

Meanwhile, the "muscled up strongest male competitors"? Gee, if only there were some records with pictures on this subject... like, say, the ones from the Olympics.

At the roughly 123 pound men's weight class, the current record for a clean and jerk is a little under 375 pounds. That... a fairly small "muscled up strongest male competitor." He looks like this.

Perhaps we should go higher? Say, a 231 pound guy who can clean and jerk 522 pounds plus some change, putting him at a 23. He looks like this.

How about women lifting weights? At slightly over 165 pounds total, the current women's clean and jerk record is 337 pounds and some change- stronger than pre-rage Amiri is supposed to be. The woman who holds that record? Rim Jong-sim

But Amiri looks a bit more spindly than she does... let's see. How about the 58 kilo/just under 128 pound weight class for women... Chen Yanqing. Her record is 304 pounds- or, technically, higher than an 18 strength.

So long as we're relying on arbitrary numbers like strength scores ( a grizzly only gets 21? BALDERDASH!), it's sure nice to have concrete numbers to work with.


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You seem to have linked the wrong images. All these people have the clearly visible lats and quads you'd want for overhead lifting which are conspicuously absent from the Amiri illustration.


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ErichAD wrote:
You seem to have linked the wrong images. All these people have the clearly visible lats and quads you'd want for overhead lifting which are conspicuously absent from the Amiri illustration.

Yes, I also wish to thank Cole for proving my point.


I'm also not really convinced that numbers given for strength really match up to weight lifting competitions. If nothing else, those are specialists at a specific task, with specific gear, while an 18 str PC would perform at that level on any strength task or contest.

And while she might "only" be able to list 300lbs over her head, it wouldn't need to be a balanced barbell with good grips, but would more likely be a monster of some kind. :)


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
ErichAD wrote:
You seem to have linked the wrong images. All these people have the clearly visible lats and quads you'd want for overhead lifting which are conspicuously absent from the Amiri illustration.

You mean the bits covered by her (utterly ludicrous) armor plating?


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Cole Deschain wrote:
ErichAD wrote:
You seem to have linked the wrong images. All these people have the clearly visible lats and quads you'd want for overhead lifting which are conspicuously absent from the Amiri illustration.
You mean the bits covered by her (utterly ludicrous) armor plating?

Nope, I don't know if you need an anatomy lesson or glasses, so I'll provide the only one of the two that I can.

Lats are the back muscles that will tend to bulge out along your sides. Someone with any sort of back strength will have an acute taper downward from their shoulders. Since her sides go nearly straight down from her shoulders to her waist, we can see that those muscles simply aren't there.

Quads are the leg muscles that would start at the inner pelvis expand to run along the front and outside edge of the leg and turn toward the knee on their way down. Stronger legs will have a wider bulge on the outside edge of the leg. The art here shows almost no bulging of the legs, even if we assume the armor is skin tight and paper thin.

As I've said before, it's totally fine that her strength is supernatural and not at all based on her size and shape. We have small creatures with similar strengths after all. But abusing folk by telling them that they aren't seeing something they should be isn't terribly polite.

Silver Crusade

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... he wasn’t being abusive by pointing out that armor covers most of where you’d see muscles.


Cole Deschain wrote:

How about women lifting weights? At slightly over 165 pounds total, the current women's clean and jerk record is 337 pounds and some change- stronger than pre-rage Amiri is supposed to be. The woman who holds that record? Rim Jong-sim

But Amiri looks a bit more spindly than she does... let's see. How about the 58 kilo/just under 128 pound weight class for women... Chen Yanqing. Her record is 304 pounds- or, technically, higher than an 18 strength.

So long as we're relying on arbitrary numbers like strength scores ( a grizzly only gets 21? BALDERDASH!), it's sure nice to have concrete numbers to work with.

Of course what these numbers also show is how much size matters in this, something few RPGs pay attention to (Runequest, of course, being an exception). I do think female competitors in boxing/judo/wrestling/'martial art of choice' might provide better examples than weightlifters, to be honest. Weightlifting is a specialised enough application of muscle that isn't quite a match for the way combat specialists need to train.


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Deadmanwalking wrote:

Yeah, I'm in agreement with MaxAstro. This version of Amiri is unsettling, with a feral madness shining from her eyes. As I said in one of my earlier posts, she very much looks like someone capable of suddenly and completely losing it and killing people in a violent rage at any moment (not that she necessarily will...but she could if she decided to).

That's disturbing and I don't blame people for being disturbed by it. I just also think it's a totally reasonable look for Amiri to possess.

That's a strange conclusion. While her countenance does look Feral, her body doesn't look able to do that killing.

Silver Crusade

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Nicos wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:

Yeah, I'm in agreement with MaxAstro. This version of Amiri is unsettling, with a feral madness shining from her eyes. As I said in one of my earlier posts, she very much looks like someone capable of suddenly and completely losing it and killing people in a violent rage at any moment (not that she necessarily will...but she could if she decided to).

That's disturbing and I don't blame people for being disturbed by it. I just also think it's a totally reasonable look for Amiri to possess.

That's a strange conclusion. While her countenance does look Feral, her body doesn't look able to do that killing.

I don’t even know no where to begin with that assumption being 10 different kinds of wrong. When has wiry ever meant harmless?


I don't understand what you said.

Shadow Lodge

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Nicos wrote:
I don't understand what you said.

"...her body doesn't look able to do that killing" is precisely why you would end up dead for underestimating her based on a flawed idea of what body types are capable of murder.

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