Pazuzu

Pazuzu is a Mesopotamian underworld deity personifying the west/southwest wind, and ruler of the lilû.

Louvre Museum, MNB 467

A statue of Pazuzu appeared in the 1973 film The Exorcist, which apparently garnered enough popularity, that it has received bit roles in various forms of media ever since.

The Exorcist, 1973

Adèle Blanc-Sec -
Le démon de la Tour Eiffel, 1976

Legend, 1985

The Simpsons -
Treehouse of Horror XXVIII, 2017

Godzilla: King of the Monsters, 2019

Spider-Man: Far From Home, 2019

House of Ashes, 2021

A couple of miniatures of Pazuzu exist, but the one I have is from the Citadel Demons Box Set from their RuneQuest line of miniatures.

An insert gave the gaming statistics for the various demons, with some notes on their combat strategies, but there wasn't much in the way of background provided for them. Some additional information appeared in White Dwarf 48, where the demons were given AD&D statistics.

The miniature vaguely fits the description of the mythological Pazuzu, but doesn't much look like the statue from the movie. I think I'm going to attach a scorpion tail to the miniature to align it closer to its appearance in Mesopotamian mythology.

British Museum 86263

Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die

The Nazgûl were ancient human kings bound to the Dark Lord Sauron through nine Rings of Power.

To normal eyes, they appeared as vaguely human figures cloaked in black robes and capes.

On the metaphysical plane, they appeared as ghostly warlords.

They were portrayed as fearsome and powerful entities in the books and movies, yet I always came away with the impression that they were rather ineffectual, despite their reputation.

I have two mounted Nazgûl from the old Heritage Servants of Sauron set (Lord of the Rings 1751). I think these are the two best poses from the set.

They are single piece castings, and represent the Nazgûl as cloaked figures, though the axe and scythe are a bit odd as weapon choices. They are true 25mm figures, and don't seem too out of place with 1/72 figures.

Another cloaked wraith is the Fiend Factory Wraith Rider on Undead Horse (Citadel FF3).

There are two versions of this miniature. A single piece casting, and a subsequent two piece casting (which is the one in the image). This figure is also true 25mm, and does not look bad with 1/72 figures either.

I particularly like this sculpt because it reminds me of Fraser's End of the Trail.

Panama–Pacific
International Exposition
1915

Last but not least, are the new Dark Alliance Black Riders mentioned in my previous post.

There are two poses on foot, one representing the Witch-king of Angmar, and the other poised to put an end to a poor defenseless bolster.

There are ten mounted poses. Nine in cloaks, and one in armor.

The horses are well sculpted, but seem to be a bit small for armored warhorses, and the riders don't fit particularly well.

There probably should have been at least one horse in a more static pose given the choice of sculpts for the riders, but all the horses are in motion with flowing tails.

Overall, the set is probably useful mainly for people who play games set in Middle Earth.

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

The Santa Wars genre has been around for a long time, but it's unclear to me where the concept originated from (perhaps with the now defunct Wargame Supply Dump?).

Santa Wars should not be confused with the nonsense surrounding the supposed "War on Christmas". Similar rhetoric has been used as a political tool as far back as the 17th century, when Christmas revelry was said to be descended from the Roman Saturnalia and Bacchanalian festivals, and condemned in the culture wars of the Age of Enlightenment.

The only figures that I can think of that are suitable for 1/72 scale Santa Wars come from Alternative Armies as part of their Seasons of Celebration Range.

I bought a sampler pack of the figures many years ago, but currently, I can only find the Psycho Presents (SN04) in my pile of lead.

There is only one figure armed with a melee weapon, so I'll probably  do some weapon conversions on the rest of them.

I remember the Evil Snowmen in the set were rather scrawny looking, but I found a fairly decent snowman in a set of Christmas ornaments.

I also found some very usable reindeer in the same section of the craft store. I think the reindeer were 69¢ a pack, and I ended up getting four sets.

Finally for Santa, there is the Citadel Limited Edition Dark Future Santa, and the Santa from the Nativity set from Odemars.

The 20mm Santa was too short, so he was modified to bring him up to spec.

Hardcore collectors might be taken aback by my sacrilege of chopping up a limited edition figure, but in the end, Santa is of no use to me if he isn't the right height.

All that's left is to paint him up, but I'm undecided as to whether to put him in a green robe, or a red robe. I'm currently leaning towards red based on the sculpt, and depictions of Santa throughout history.

Chalawan

Chalawan (ชาละวัน) is a crocodile spirit from the Thai folktale Kraithong (ไกรทอง). The story was adapted into a lakhon nok play credited to King Rama II, and has received a number of film adaptations over the years.

The story is so popular, that there is even a Thai craft beer named after Chalawan.

Anyone think their logo looks familiar?

In the story, Chalawan lives in a cave containing a magical crystal that gives all the crocodiles within human form. Outside of the cave however, he appears as an enormous crocodile. On occasion, Chalawan is also depicted as being half-man, half-crocodile.

A Cambodian take on the story can be seen in the film Kropeu Charavan (ក្រពើឆារ៉ាវ៉ាន់) aka The Crocodile Men. In this film, Chalawan (Charavan) is fully human, but knows a spell to transform into a crocodile.

The spell is very reminiscent of legends about the Indonesian power of tiang maleh rupa that allows people to change into crocodiles, or crocodiles to change into humans. And in fact, these legends are often credited as being the source for werecrocodiles in RPGs. In the Indonesian horror movies based on these legends, these creatures always seem to be albino crocodiles (buaya putih).

For more inspiration on magical crocodiles, I turned to the first issue of the zine A Thousand Thousand Islands, by Zedeck Siew, with art by Mun Kao.

MR-KR-GR describes a land of crocodiles and their human subjects. The zine introduces us to the Place of Crocodiles, but does not delve deeply into detail so I'm not sure I can characterize it as a gazetteer. The setting is painted with broad strokes, yet is evocative and tantalizes the reader with bits and pieces of the wondrous and grotesque.

Zedeck doesn't have any plans to make a comprehensive guide for his setting since he prefers the open-ended feel of the different locales introduced in his zines, but I personally would want to do a lot of research into the culture and mythology of Southeast Asia to do justice to the setting. Nevertheless, there are many people who can take off running with it just fine, so it is certainly not a hindrance to not have any sort of detailed background.

I'm not sure if there is currently any stock of the latest printings of the zine, but you can always contact Zedeck to check on availability.

Anyway, on to miniatures. There are several companies that make crocodile-men, including Privateer Press (Gatormen) and Crocodile Games (Sebeki), but the only series of miniatures that are close in size to 1/72 scale figures are the old C19 and RR11 Lizardmen from Citadel.

Grenadier also made the Caroc (Monster Manuscript Vol.II 1502, MM10) which I think matches well with the Citadel miniatures.

For regular crocodiles there are a lot of different plastic toys that can be used, but most of them are probably too large for use with 1/72 scale figures.

I only have the Airfix crocodile from the Tarzan figure set (01733), while all my other figures are actually alligators. The adult and baby alligators are from the Airfix Zoo Animals No. 1 set (01724). Next is a Galoob alligator from the National Geographic Collection Swamp Adventure set, and at the end is the Marx alligator from the Noah's Ark playset.

Last but not least is the D&D Icons of the Realms Crocodile (Waterdeep Dragon Heist #30), which can be used as a large saltwater crocodile.

Howard the Duck

Back in the day, Archive Miniatures produced a number of duck miniatures sourced from Marvel's Howard the Duck.

I can't say that I've ever read any of the stories, but I am familiar with Howard from the covers of the old comics.

Howard the Barbarian

In any event, I've always considered him to be the inspiration for the Durulz race, which first appeared in miniature form from Martian Metals and Citadel. The first three ducks on the left are Martian Metals Armored Ducks (RuneQuest 7001). The lone duck on the right is a Citadel Duck Adventurer from the RuneQuest Adventurers box set.

I always wanted to make Howard part of my Duck Army, so I bought a cheap HeroClix Howard (Deadpool and The X-Force #035) on eBay a while back.

When I started to rebase the figure I noticed a couple of things that seemed to be off about the sculpt. Why was he wearing pants?  Where is his cigar? Was this some sort of effort to make Howard respectable?

I did some searching on Google, and found out that in 1977 Disney forced Howard to wear pants under threat of legal action. I didn't find out anything about the cigar, though I think this particular sculpt is the 2015 series version of Howard in which he doesn't ever seem to have a cigar.

Anyway, this was unacceptable, so I had to depants him and return his cigar.

The first problem though, is his body shape. This is very apparent when he is compared with the other duck miniatures.

To be clear: he has no butt to speak of.

Sir Mix-A-Lot would be sad.

I carved away his pants and sculpted a duck-butt out of Kneadatite.

I'll probably do a little more work on the modification because it still doesn't look quite right, but that's it for now.