Pandora's Box Monster- Stickbeast

Appearing to be a bundle of dead branches or an odd leafless tree, stickbeasts are solitary creatures seldom seen in the company of others of their kind.

_MV__WND__#ATT__ATT__DEF__ARC__DISC_
__4____4_____4_____4____4___8___6__
Base 20mm Square
DM 1        AR1

Stickthin Target- All attacks (melee, missile, etc.) are -2 to hit.

The mini for this guy I actually sculpted- not well but I guess it can be called sculpting. Some pre-painting pictures of this "sculpt."

It should look somewhat better with paint and sand, I hope!

Pandora's Box Monster- Wrack

Appearing to be a normal human, though somewhat feral, the Wrack undergoes a transformation when it is wounded. It becomes more aggressive and larger until it is a hulking monstrosity when it is near death.

_MV__WND__#ATT__ATT__DEF__ARC__DISC_
__5___6____2___6/7/8__6/7/8__6/7/8___6__
Base 20/25/40mm Square
DM 1/2/3        AR1/3/5

Wound Growth- The Wrack starts out on a 20mm base. Once it takes 2 Wounds it grows and is on a 25mm base with an increase in ATT, DEF, ARC, DM and AR. Once it has taken 4 Wounds it grows again and is on a 40mm base with another increase in stats.

I have no miniatures for this guy yet, but I do have a few ideas for the different stages...

Yembic Lion and Hilok Minis Completed!

Both are finally finished and based, ready to threaten the innocent...

I didn't see the bit of sand on his tail until I was editing the pics. It will be dealt with accordingly...

the Yembic Lion attacks a Priest of Aten Revealed...

The sort of open area will be used as the 'front' since it sort of looks like a mouth...

The Hilok gets a shot at the Priest of Aten Revealed...

Pandora's Box Monster- Hilok

At fist glance the Hilok appears to be a mound of debris or dirt or flesh. When it slowly undulates towards you is when its true monstrous nature is revealed.

_MV__WND__#ATT__ATT__DEF__ARC__DISC_
_2____10____1____4____4_____9___10__
Base 30mm Square
DM 1 AR 2

Unrelenting Advance- The Hilok is unaffected by terrain modification to movement. It is also never given a Fall Back or Pull About orders.

Resistant to Missiles- The Hilok's low profile and makeup protect it from most missile attacks. All missile attacks against the Hilok receive a +2 to its AR.

The mini I'm using is a clump of dried metallic gold paint (it has since been painted a different color) on a homemade base. I've been trying to figure out what to do with it ever since I put it on the base. At first I thought it could serve as a meteorite objective for that one subplot. Now it will be able to do double duty.

Finished pics to come...

Wedjet- Winged Cobra - Olde monster conversion

From my incomparable "Monsters of Ægyptus" article in Croc Tales 1, more pics of the simple conversion to create a Wedjet (winged cobra).

Wings from a Warhawk Falcon and a Cobra from one of the Typhon miniatures combined to make a pretty cool monster.

Pandora's Box Monster- Yembic Lion

The Yembic Lions were first encountered by King Yemba of Pteronia. These formidable beasts caused much destruction to Yemba’s army before they were scattered by his Amazonian allies. Scholars dispute whether the Yembic Lion is actually a type of lion at all. It is clear that it is a monster of some sort released from Pandora’s Box. Now they seem to be multiplying and spreading throughout the world…

MV   WND   #ATT   ATT   DEF   ARC   DISC

_7____4____3_____7____6____7_____7__

Base 40mm Square

Claws & Fangs   DM 2

Thick Fur   AR 3

Paralyzing Glance- At the beginning of the Yembic Lion’s activation that it is not engaged in melee, it may target any single model (even if the target is the member of a unit) within 20” with its paralyzing glance. This is an ARC vs ARC test. If the Yembic Lion is successful, the target is incapable of any actions for D5 turns (no Movement, Attack, Defense, etc.). Targets who are members of a unit are left behind if the unit moves away.

Lashing Tail- During melee combat the Yembic Lion gains one extra attack from its long whip-like tail. The tail has ATT 5  and DM 0.

The miniature I'm using:

 A Star Wars Collectible Miniature- Nexu. I've been meaning to do something with this thing since I picked it up really cheap on eBay a few years ago. The Pandora's Box Campaign gave me the perfect reason to get to it.

I hacked him off the round base and cut a 40mm square base from an old gift card. Since I never really liked the 2 tail look of him I decided to take off the less interesting tail.

 Here he is on the square base with a WarGods mini to help show the scale.

Not quite finished yet, but you get the general idea. I'll post more pics when he's finished.

The Luminaries of “the Traveller’s Luminaries”

Somehow I came up with “the Traveller’s Luminaries” as the name of Shefdu’s Pandora’s Box warband. It started out as “Sootootma’s Superstars” but that was way too anachronistic for my taste. Some brainstorming and thesaurus searching helped me arrive at the official title.  This warband is meant to be very fluffy, I’m not going for a killer warband that will plow through every opponent and leave a trail of carcasses in its wake (that would be nice, but living Shefdu is much more refined than that).

The idea behind the Luminaries is that Shefdu is pulling heroes (and heroines, he’s got a thing for strong ladies, remember) out of scrolls to aid him in the fight against the forces of Chaos. Heroes one and all, these will be Shefdu's favorite characters and units. Hopefully it will give us great insight into Shefdu's inner workings.

Young Seshat basically comes from my desire to use my female Tethru Master of Words conversion once again. She's sort of my lucky MoW and looks great on the battlefield. I decided on 'Young Seshat' because who else would Shefdu look up to as a role model but the greatest MoW since Thoth himself? It's the YOUNG Seshat because Shefdu wouldn't want to bother the older version of her, even if she is merely a simulacrum pulled from a scroll...

Sefkhet Aabut was used in Wenenut's Aten Heresy warband.  This is the version of her that Shefdu's pulled from a scroll. I decided to change her epithet from 'the Mighty Quill' to 'the Polemicist' and/or 'the Poison Quill' for a couple reasons. I was going to have a Tethru hero named after Christopher Hitchens as the Polemicist, but I couldn't figure out a good Ægyptification of 'Hitchens.' My first use of the Tethru Heroine mini was as a reinforcement for the worst Typhon Harbinger EVER during the Horus vs Set campaign. I think she had a different name but her epithet, being an evil Tethru, was 'the Poison Quill.' That also seems an appropriate epithet for a Polemicist...

Iodah the Hero of Kashik is pretty self-explanatory to any fan of Star Wars. Instead of outright City-Dwellers of Hermopolis I wanted to use Chronopia Swamp Goblins as Children of Bes. They’re short and the Egyptians had a liking of dwarves- and Bes was a dwarf-god. So as Asar stand-ins they fit fluffwise very well. Iodah’s backstory was pretty simple to come up with- Heru General gets too cocky and pays the price. Little Bes-dude rallies the troops and saves the day…

The allied characters are both variants of characters I was going to use for the abandoned Jilgamish warband. For reinforcements I’ve got some fun possibilities planned.

Kortosis the Impregnable was going to be Ziusudra, the Babylonian builder of the ark. When the Jilgamish warband was abandoned I took some time trying to figure out a good ToTanem sounding name. When that resulted in nothing worthwhile it hit me- Cortosis (also a Star Wars reference)! I Ægyptified it  by changing the ‘C’ to a ‘K’ and the ‘Impregnable’ epithet followed from there. His Babylonian origins get a nod in that he helped repel  a Babylonian invasion. The Babylonian leader, Lugalbanda, is also another nod to the abandoned Jilgamish warband. Lugalbanda is Gilgamesh’s father! (Another Star Wars tie-in?) Every Tethru warband should seriously consider an Artifex because of the chance to get a Sorcerer’s Rod…

The big one. The one I’m most excited about and proud of- Menthu Hathorhotep the Apis. A couple years ago I sold off my original Beloved of Sobek on eBay and his replacement is in the cleaned-but-not-assembled stage. My Olympus Minotaur is simply awesome and on the same size base as a Beloved, so why not use him instead?

This guy would have fit well as Emkidu (Enkidu, Gilgamesh’s buddy) in the abandoned Jilgamish warband. When Gilgamesh and Enkidu first met they sort of butted heads like a couple of bulls and the Babylonian Bull of Heaven plays a part in the story. Since this is WarGods, not bound by the constraints of mythology as it IS, I thought that Enkidu AS a Bull of Heaven would be a great twist. Of course I had to make the minotaur fit into an Ægyptus warband and that took some serious(ly fun research).

For the name- I knew he had to be a son of Hathor (the cow goddess), so “Hathorhotep” came first. Then I remembered one of the possible Heru names I’d made note of long ago had an alternate bull aspect- Menthu of Thebes! Now I just needed some reason that this not-minotaur guy would be someone Shefdu would want in his warband.

I’ve not really been bitten by the Olympus bug, but I do know some Greek myth and Herakles quickly came to mind, especially his 12 Labors. I started out wanting Menthu to be the Ægyptian Herakles but better because he had 13 Labors. When I refreshed my memory on all 12 of Herk’s Labors I was unimpressed because several of them were pretty much the same (go catch this wild beast/monster) and a couple were just kinda lame (clean out that king’s stables) so I decided that to be more awesome Menthu would only need half as many Labors (eventually I realized that 5 would be even better still).

Since nobody really thinks of anyone but a Sebeki falling in love with a female Sebeki- Menthu HAD to fall in love with a Sebeki Princess. From there it was a foregone conclusion that there would need to be a tragic twist at the end.

The use of ‘Endeavors’ came from a thesaurus search to get just the right word to replace ‘Labors.’ The Endeavors themselves mirror Herk’s Labors but with a more Ægyptus theme (I think). Since Sebeki like to eat I figured having a few Endeavors meant to result in the main course for a feast would be good. The hunt for a Babylonian Bull of Heaven is yet another nod to the abandoned Jilgamish warband. The Headdress of Isis is a twist on Hippolyte’s Girdle. Menthu doesn’t have to fight or come up with trickery to get the Headdress- another episode that makes him better than Herk.

I’m sure this is just the beginning of “Menthu’s Celebrated Journeys”…

Bringing the Scroll Traveller to the Pandora Campaign (2011)

From time to time (more often than that even) I'll give some behind-the-scenes commentary on stuff. This is the first one of those commentaries about Shefdu Sootootma's warband for the 2011 World Campaing:

I recently read 2 or 3 of the newer translations of the Epic of Gilsgamesh (for fun). That gave me every intention of doing a Gilgamesh-themed Ptah warband for the Pandora’s Box Campaign. But my own insecurities about pulling it off made me rethink it. I don't have all the figures I'd want to use as Babylonians in my vast collection yet. It would have been a fun warband but ToTanem Harbingers often end up being way too frustrating to play against. So I decided to try something that might be more fun for me and my potential opponents.

I considered an Inanna-themed Isis warband to keep with the Babylonian theme and add some spice to games. Inanna's warband will likely see some games as a proxy Chaos warband or my personal Chaos warband during the campaign. Many of her jilted and tormented lovers will be used as characters, plus she's got lots of Nekharu to help firmly put her in the Chaos faction.

This brought an idea I've been playing with for quite some time to the fore- a Tethru warband of the pre-mummified Shefdu Sootootma 'the Scroll Traveller.' Longtime fans of Shefdu's exploits will no doubt exclaim "Waitaminnut- I thought Shefdu was known as the 'Scribe of the Dawn' before he was the Dark Harbinger version known as the 'Scribe of Oblivion!'" Of course he was, everyone knows that. BUT before he was 'Scribe of the Dawn' he was known as 'the Scroll Traveller.'

A literal translation of Shefdu is "papyrus scroll" and Sootootma is "to travel or walk"- so he's been the 'Scroll Traveller,' or 'Scroll Walker,' all along. I think Mabuki may have made mention of this at one time but it was in passing so nobody really noticed it.

Before he first became a Harbinger of Thoth he discovered an ancient magical technique that let him enter a scroll and take part in the action. This is probably why he became a Harbinger in the first place (I haven’t written that part of his fluff yet). Of course it’s a forbidden knowledge thing so he was only able to use it for a little while before the Assessors stepped in. That is the Shefdu who finds himself in the midst of the Pandora's Box Crisis…