Shining a Light on Darklands Rising Miniatures from WizKids

A new set of prepainted miniatures from our lovely friends over at WizKids is set for Feb. 3 release. Pathfinder Battles: Darklands Rising has some amazing miniatures I am excited to add to my roleplaying miniatures collection as well as for use in my personal Dungeons & Dragons games. Darklands Rising fantasy miniatures are designed for the Pathfinder roleplaying game and features creatures from the deepest depths of Golarion but certainly make a terrific addition to your minis and battle grids for any fantasy tabletop RPG.

So many miniatures, so little time…

Darklands Rising includes a total of 50 miniatures in the typical blind purchase boxes as well as one premiere miniature of the fabulous Gargantuan Gold Dragon with two miniatures each with an alternate version bringing the total number of different sculpts to 52. The blind purchase box highlights the spectacular detail of the Cavern Troll, Wood Giant and the Leng Spider on one side of the box. The flip side of the box shows the Norn, Fleshwarp Drow Abomination and the massive Adamantine Golem. The back of the box shows Mengkare, Great Wyrm Gold Dragon.

I’ve collected half of the miniatures in this set and love the detail and sculpt of each. I have plans to purchase more as there are some in the set I know I can use in my upcoming games. I am excited to use a number of the amazing Darklands Rising minis I’ve got. The Leng Spider has a sculpt of web behind the mini allowing it to hang upside down off of the web. I love when the artists do this sort of stuff for minis to showcase the nature of the creature and provide an interesting piece at the same time. This huge spider is a nice vibrant purple with legs ending in sharp black claws. The drool hanging from its mouth makes for a great intimidating piece.

The Adamantine Golem is another huge piece in the Darklands Rising collection. With a massive cloud of smoke billowing out the top of of this construct it would be the bane of any nature loving creature out there. It is useful in so many ways but I have a section of my game world the players are about to explore on the border of the Feywild. The fey will not take kindly to see a golem like this walking around.

My campaign currently involves a lot of aberrations as meteors landed on the planet and many of them housed these aberrant creatures. Shoggoth and the flesh warped creatures in the set fit very well into my campaign goals and they will certainly see play before too long. Shoggoth can be used as is or as a massive gibbering mouther. Part of me sees this creature as an advanced form. As it takes damage —  especially piercing and slashing — smaller gibbering mouthers split off from the central mass. Yuck.

All the minis in the Darklands Rising set would take too much time to go over but I will say the Cavern Troll with the spikes or crystals growing out of it is quite cool. It is a sweet looking troll but with its rocky exterior and even crystal teeth it could just as easily be an earth elemental. This is one of the many reasons I love these minis. Not only can you use them as intended but they seem to be designed to have multiple uses for game masters.

Here is a list of all the miniatures in Pathfinder Battles: Darklands Rising:

• Deep Gnome Scout
• Deep Gnome Warrior
• Fungus Leshy
• Giant Amoeba
• Leprechaun
• Drow Rogue
• Grodair
• Hellspawn Monk
• Hollowborn Rogue
• Peryton
• Tengu Bard
• Urdefhan arrior
• Vrykolakas
• Gnome Scout
• Gnome Warrior
• Attic Whisperer
• Deep Gnome Rockwarden
• Dig-Widget
• Lurker in Light
• Blood Mist
• Drow Priestess
• Fleshwarp, Grothlut
• Scarecrow
• Drow Warrior (Rapier)
• Drow Warrior (Crossbow)
• Fleshwarp, Drow Abomination
• Fleshwarp, Ghonatine
• Skaveling
• Wood Giant
• Emperor Cobra
• Giant Stag Beetle
• Giant Toad
• Leucrotta
• Adamantine Golem
• Arboreal Regent
• Leng Spider
• Mammoth
• Mammoth Rider
• Allevrah Azrinae
• Animate Dream
• D’ziriak
• Siora Quinndove, Pathfinder
• Tengu Jinx Eater
• Urdefhan Tormentor
• Witchwyrd
• Zon-Kuthon, Midnight Lord
• Fleshwarp, Irnakurse
• Norn
• Cavern Troll
• Quoppopak
• Jabberwock
• Shoggoth

In the Pathfinder RPG shoggoth are horrors existing in the deepest and darkest reaches of the oceans or in the remotest ruins and caverns.

I would be remiss in my duties if I did not share in the glory of the aforementioned Mengkare, Great Wyrm Gold Dragon. Gold dragons always have a beautiful and regal look and Mengkare is no different. The great gold dragon appears in Broken Promises, the conclusion of Pathfinder’s Age of Ashes Adventure Path. But if you are not playing this campaign then how might you use such an enemy? Gold dragons are traditionally are lawful good. If you are playing a game with heroic adventurers how are they pitted against such a beacon of uncompromising goodness?

The answer can come from numerous directions. First and foremost — mind control. If Mengkare, Great Wyrm Gold Dragon is not designed to be your final boss then clearly the thing they fight later needs to be more impressive and more powerful. Thus it could have found a way to control such a being. If mind control is not to your interests what about a sickness or a disease? A compromised brain perhaps not even under its own control has resorted to a more bestial nature. Lastly I will say the attitude of such a creature can change over the years, or perhaps it never was such a being of good. In our world the color of a dragon’s scales does not tell you the alignment and how it should behave. It can tell you the mechanics of things like breath weapon and resistances but not its nature. Dragons get to be as diverse as any other sentient mortal creatures. That previously mentioned forest in my campaign. A dragon who lives in my campaign is not going to take too kindly to adventures mucking around and it might not end in combat the first time they encounter him but at some point the dice will roll and we will see who the victor will be.

If you are looking to get WizKids’ Pathfinder Battles: Darklands Rising miniatures you can find them right here here.

Thanks for reading. Until next time, stay nerdy!