Wednesday, February 23, 2022

Pathfinder Society Minis and Artwork Update

A few years ago now, I shared the portraits I'd drawn of my Pathfinder Society characters, along with capsule bios of each one. A year later, I shared photos of the LEGO minis I'd made for those characters, with a few new characters who had debuted since that previous post. I plan to do a similar article about my Starfinder Society characters sometime soon, but for now, I'm going to update two of those PFS First Edition PCs, then introduce the handful of PFS Second Edition characters I've created so far.


First Edition Pathfinder Updates

Very few of the minis for my 1E characters have required updating. K'Chaw's mini (tengu cavalier) has a new helmet, and Volutus's (sylph druid) has a new face, but only two PCs received substantial mini makeovers and/or new art. 

Cassilda Tillinghast

Cassilda Tillinghast (human mindblade magus) received a second portrait almost 2 years ago (see above). She can now manifest two psychic weapons at once, so I felt the need to depict that. I haven't updated her mini yet, but may do so whenever I get to play her in an in-person game again. 

Thanks to rapid advancement through two adventure paths, Falling Rock (Shoanti human ranger/fighter) soon surpassed my other characters in power, and has been retired at 19th level. (There is one more PFS scenario that we could legally play with those characters, taking them to 20th, but it's a multi-table special that can only be run at a con. And it's a fairly old one, so we may be waiting quite a long time before demand for it reaches critical mass again.) Falling Rock continued to get even scarier with his trusty earth breaker, and ended play with a +5 impact impervious merciful adamantine weapon. He also acquired mithral full plate very early in his career, which required a dramatic rebuild of his mini: he kept the old head, but he wears a Castle/Kingdom knight's armor, a Roman legionnaire's helmet (chosen to leave his face visible), and his new earth breaker is built around a fist/hammer piece from (IIRC) the Legend of Chima theme.

Falling Rock

I have also drawn a quick B&W sketch of Falling Rock in his new armor, charging forward with his weapon raised.

Falling Rock


Second Edition Pathfinders

I have played three characters in PFS 2E so far, and may be debuting my fourth in a month or two. I have not yet drawn portraits for any of them, but the active ones all have LEGO minis, and I built a mini for the newest character while writing this column. 

Thibdab (goblin redeemer champion of Sarenrae) has advanced several levels since he made an appearance at the end of my previous PFS minis column. He retains his original head (Goblin, Minifigures Series 13), sword (Prince of Persia), and shield (Wonder Woman), but now wears platemail (plain light gray breastplate, torso, and short legs).  Much like Falling Rock above, Thibdab's new samurai helmet was chosen because it leaves his face visible--he is, after all, a goblin champion, and should be identifiable as one. His first knight-master (K'Chaw, my 1E tengu cavalier) is from Tian Xia, so his headgear is a nod to that, too.

Thibdab has also acquired a wolf mount, which he named Kazaam! (the "!" is part of the name). The wolf started out Small, so was a more of a trained companion than a mount, but is now Medium and thus large enough to bear Thibdab into battle (though he's faster without a heavily-armored goblin on his back). Most of my time playing Thibdab has been online due to Covid, so I was able to use an image of a gray LEGO warg as his wolf's Roll20 token. The warg is far too large for in-person play, so I have a LEGO dog and a goblin microfigure for when Thibdab is mounted. A couple of 1x1 plates with clips hold a shield (from the Aztec Warrior, Minifigures Series 7) and sword (a non-LEGO scimitar), and the microfigure wears the magic helmet from the Heroica theme. 

Thibdab, afoot (L) and mounted on Kazaam! (R)

Millicent Velarno is a human sorceress with the hag bloodline. This photo inspired her look--all black, with a cloak and hood, and dramatic, spooky eye makeup--and still serves as her token on Roll20. I got a chance to play her in person at a local con last summer, so she needed a mini then. She wears a witch's black torso (Minifigures Series 2), plain black legs (more practical than skirts), a cloth Batman cape, and a black hood. Her head is Tonto's, from the very short-lived The Lone Ranger theme. Here, with only the makeup visible, Depp's highly controversial racial caricature has been repurposed for a more acceptable "goth witch" look. Since I built this mini, she has acquired a demon mask, which she wears constantly to make herself even more intimidating. I have a couple of monstrous Ninjago masks (the Thunder Keeper and the Omega oni) that I keep with her mini in case I decide the scary mask needs more attention.

Millicent Velarno (L) and Xathel (R)

Xathel is an elf investigator, with a bit of rogue. (I chose an elf heritage that allows a multiclassing archetype at 1st level, and rogue added even more to his long list of trained skills.) His body is that of a Mirkwood elf, but he has Bruce Banner's head (for the green eyes) and Zan/Jayna's hairpiece (The Batman Movie Minifigures). He wears a brown cape matching his elven garb, and wields a shortsword (Sting, from LOTR/Hobbit sets). 

My brand-new, unplayed 1st-level PC for 2E is Grazga, a half-orc summoner who belongs to the (mostly human) Sarkorian tribes, whose ancestral homeland was devastated by a demonic incursion. The resulting Worldwound has been recently healed (during one of the last adventure paths released for 1E), and now some of her people are working to reclaim those lands with help from the Pathfinders and other allies. Grazga is one of her tribe's spiritual leaders, known as "god-callers," who are bonded to eidolons considered to be minor divinities. Her companion is Dontorex, who looks like a feathered dinosaur. 

Grazga's mini uses one of the old "tribal warrior" bodies from the Old West theme, with the light brown hands and head from a Star Wars alien, and long, loose hair from a Hobbit theme dwarf. Her cape is red on one side and tan on the other, turned drab side out for camouflage. (Sadly, I forget the source for this piece, as it's one of the few non-monochrome capes I own.) I would have preferred a more brightly-colored, more dinosaur-like mini for Dontorex, but ended up compromising with a Vampire Bat torso (Minifigures Series 8), which comes with small wings attached to the arms. To preserve the color scheme, I used Bytar's head (a Constrictai Serpentine character from Ninjago). 

Grazga (L) and Dontorex (R)

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