This is a bit of a pivot from all my recent Warhammer, because I had a batch of D&D minis on the shame pile that I wanted to (finally) address. What started as my next foray into working on the Demonweb series turned into a fun little journey of self-reflection, particularly when I got to a model in the pile I couldn’t find an equivalent for in the Demonweb set: The Nolzur’s Marvelous Miniature Elf Cleric pair. These are supposed to show an early, unarmored cleric with just a humble staff transforming into a more heroic-looking elf with a longer cape, robes, fancy armour, and a cool mace and shield.

What I realized as I went is that over the years when I’ve played Dungeons and Dragons, sometimes with long stretches of years in between campaigns, these two actually represented the transformation of my played character archetypes but in reverse. Instead of an armored cleric, many of my early characters were a Lord of the Rings-esque high elf drawing elements of inspiration from other fantasy medium and games like the Legend of Zelda. They were righteous (and often rather self-righteous) characters who often took on the work of being the party’s moral compass without thought to or without acknowledging their own flaws, and often found themselves quickly over their heads in trouble and relied on plot armor or story devices to save them and the rest of the party. I favored the Warlord, Paladin and Fighter classes and thought this was what a hero character looked like, but I think this was a hero character that thought he had a lot to prove and wasn’t as ready for the world as he thought he was.

The D&D character I have played most recently though is a cleric equipped only with modest robes and a stick, but who I think is making a much better impact despite being far less fancy. He isn’t the character who is leading the charge or who the action overtly focuses on, but he is a reliable source of debuff-cleansing, healing, and the occasional status condition. My recent cleric gets plenty of quips and goofs and gaffs in like the rest of the group but there is also a strength in this character’s silence or the work that he doesn’t draw attention to that makes a greater net difference than the brasher characters of old. This doesn’t make him meek as a character; rather, he is still a deeply passionate fellow about life and the world around him, recognizing that the world is not black and white and good and evil, but rather that both the world’s cruelties and beauty are both an important part of life, and makes it all the more important to cherish the things we care about and love, and to burn as brightly as we can while we can.

All that rambling aside, posting should be back to a somewhat regular schedule again soon! I have been out of town on the other side of the island helping my partner @brittneystucklessart with convention markets and I will soon be back to the painting and writing desks both. I have a batch on the way where I top up my Demonweb batch from last year with some essentials, and then we’re getting back to some Warhammer projects. Thanks for coming along for the ride!