D&D Icons of the Realms Miniatures: The Wild Beyond the Witchlight – Booster

Blind boxes are a fact of life if you collect pre-painted miniatures.  Wizkid’s Icon’s of the Realms range tends to come a in few flavours, usually themed after a specific D&D adventure release. The The Wild Beyond The Witchlight adventure is filled with weird beasties and this booster set lets you get your hands on some truly interesting pieces.

Our common models include Feywild Goblins, Harengon Brigands and Bullywug Guards. The goblins look like they’ve stepped off the set of a Jim Henson movie, different from other goblin models yet very much fantasy beasties. Harengon are rabbit people, and the brigands look adorable. There’s also a hero in this set, a Harengon called Agdon Longscarf who is very dynamic and looks really cool if set to ‘lead’ the brigands. Bullwug’s are frog-people, and these models are sculpted with halberds and pantaloons; perfect for a royal guard. There’s also a Bullywug Royal in the same set. He looks very elderly and also kind of scary.   The Bullywugs also get Gullop the XIX. Imagine Elizabeth The First, The Gloriana, as a frog. It’s a very fun piece.

Also in the common range are two different flavours of mushroom people. Myconoids are humanoid fungus monsters, and in this set they’re wearing a poison toadstool hat. They look chillingly dangerous. We also get much smaller Campestri; these are singing mushrooms with big smiles on their faces. They’re very silly and really well done.

They are some rarer to find hero models. These include Will (one of the heroic NPCs) and Star, the displacer beast kitten who’s sort of the poster cat for the whole adventure. These are nicely done, though Star could be cuter. The paint job on Will is very well done, as are the majority of the paint jobs in this range. Cradlefall, the Green Dragon Wyrmling is as cute as he is in the book. It also doubles as a medium sized dragon piece, which is very useful for any DM who is trying to explain scale to his players.

As to the bigger models, we get some interesting combos. They are two huge ‘riding beasts’, a Floating Lily Pad and mechanical bird. Both of these are designed to be ridden by hags (which come separately) and you can click the weird witches onto these. The lilly pad is especially fun as there’s nothing quite like it.

The set features two versions of Iggwilv’s Cauldron, a key item in the game and an Unicorn horn which is less a miniature and more an in-game prop. They are a lot of smaller sized models in the range and they are balanced out with the larger pieces, but expect to regularly open a box with one big thing and three smaller pieces.

If you’re only after specific models for your The Wild Beyond The Witchlight campaign, you’ll be better off looking The Witchlight Carnival Premium set or the League of Malevolence/Valor’s Call Starters. However if you having an army of Bullywugs, Redcaps, singing mushroom people, Giant Snails and some really unique models, it’s worth giving the boosters a go.

 

D&D Icons of the Realms Miniatures: The Wild Beyond the Witchlight – Swamp Gas Balloon

The D&D adventure The Wild Beyond The Witchlight is filled with whimsy and strangeness. One of the more fun story threads a Dungeon Master can pull in the this Feywild adventure. Experienced D&D players will know that at low levels, the ability to move about in the air is incredibly useful but also potentially lethal. Not everyone can fly and falling off something that can fly can lead to your character having a very short adventure.

The Swamp Gas Balloon is an imposing and ridiculous looking model, designed to hold about 6 models at the heroic 25mm (ish) scale; which is roughly the scale D&D works at.  The balloon come with an integrated flying base that will dominate any battle map you put it on taking up a 4×4 space. That’s roughly the same sort of space a young adult dragon would take up.

It’s a fun model that will inspire a lot of  interaction with the game. You can stack your adventuring party into the basket and instantly realise that even a party of gnomes and halflings are going to have to jockey about to get into position, leading to more fun as your dungeon master makes you roll athletics.

The model itself is cleverly thought out. The ropes that hold the balloon to the basket are thick flexible plastic that look very rope like. (Also the way ropes are ‘attached’ makes it easy to figure out how quickly an adventurers could climb up the balloon, should they be so desperate or fool-hardy).

The model is a mix of majestic and ramshackle and is painted to the usual high standard we’ve come to expect from Wizkids.  If you already own a flying piece (such as the Skycoach), this is a great addition to the collection – something else for your party to deal with while dealing with the many flying and floating dangers in D&D. Of course, if you’re running The Wild Beyond The Witchlight, it’s a perfect way to introduce the party to journeys to distant fey realms.

DEATH SAVES: WAR OF DRAGONS

Death Saves is Hollywood star Joe Manganiello’s Dungeons and Dragons related brand. War of Dragon’s is the campaign that he runs which sounds like an epic mish mash of all the cool D&D campaign ideas thrown into a witch’s brew of epic, action fuelled moments.  Of course being a famous LA geek, Joe’s players are something unusual; regular gamers include the likes of Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello,  Vince Vaughan,  wrestling champion Big Show and apparently many more as people drop in and out of Joe’s famous campaign, all ran from Joes luxury gaming man-cave.

And of course, if there’s a cool D&D related thing happening somewhere in the world, Wizkids are producing the models.  The Death Saves: War of Dragons range comes in two boxed sets so far.

All of these are pre-painted models scaled for table top roleplaying. They’re meant to be used with battle-maps and the like, or simply as a token to inspire gamers. Box One features an armoured polar bear called Braga. The bear has lovely green scale style barding, and his middle can be popped out so you can equip him with his dwarf rider, Kimathi Stormhollow.  The Dwarf also has his own legs, in case you want him to stand-alone. It’s nice bear, and the dwarf carries a wicked looking spear and is so well done he could have walked out of a Larry Elmore painting.

We get bare-chested blue chap wielding a magical axe made of ice and some sort of water/ice themed staff. Apparently he’s called Lapp and he has a familiar, a seagull charmingly called Christoper Squakin. Lapp would be a great choice for anyone playing a Genasi, and who doesn’t want a sea-gull miniature?

Next up is Maeglin, a moody looking sculpt of a ‘dark magic’ using mage who looks like he’s casting some sort of shadow spell. He’s assisted by a cool little raven called Poe. The paint-job on this piece is very well done; Wizkids could have sprayed it black, added white for the hair and called it quits but they’ve been careful with the shading here and the result is something nicely gothic.

The optimistically named Nerruk The Unkillable appears to be dressed in armour that reminds us of a frost dragon, has skin made of stone and wields a flaming blade. He looks pretty angry, presumably because his sword is one fire.  Rounding of box one is the human ranger Phann Nailo, who has impressive hair, a cool cloak and wields the same sort of magic bow Hank used in the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon.

Box Two doesn’t have a polar bear in It, but it does have flying carpet. It’s well done and looks like it’s in mid flight. The design is cool and the carpet is just flat enough to make balancing normal sized minis on it fairly easy.  Not that the model Jericho Blackwing needs to. He’s some sort of dead Knight, with glowing eyes and massive raven-wings.  He looks like a great bad-guy model to use in a pinch. He’s accompanied by Oriax, a lady tiefling with pale skin, a big hammer and bat-wings.

The wizardly Kasin looks a lot like a cult leader in flowing white robes and fabulous hair. He’s assisted by a half-naked, heavily tattooed half-orc wielding a spear, who’s called Kalatuur MinMax. (One of the fun things about this range are the names. This is exactly how people name their D&D characters.

Marrat Occisor is a serious looking elf-like hero, with pale skin, face paint and a big black sword. Pretty much perfect for many D&D players. Hugo Ledbetter is black cloak wearing, ranged weapon wielding rogue. Against, cool but also generic enough to appeal to many a D&D player. Finally we get Ullac Jottunn, who as the name suggests, his giant-kin. This big model has Ullac Wirld both a massive axe, a huge fireball in the palm of his hand a surely look on his face. His body his half-burned and it looks both amazing and grisly.

The Death Saves range is an interesting selection of models. We’ve no idea if there’s a big market in models based on D&D characters played by celebrities, but even without that element to them, these are just a lot of fun.

BEADLE & GRIMM’S PLATINUM EDITION THE WILD BEYOND THE WITCHLIGHT

Beadle and Grimm Red Box

We absolutely adored the recent D&D adventure The Wild Beyond the Witchlight. Aimed firmly at people who like to play Dungeons and Dragons as an immersive experience, the book mixes modern gaming ideas with a nostalgia and a yearning to recover the little things that become lost to time.  The only thing that could have improved the book would have been more tools in which to run the game. Beadle & Grimms The Wild Beyond the Witchlight Platinum Edition does exactly that, and then some.

In case you missed it when the book came out, Witchlight is set in the Feywild, the ‘fairy land’ setting for Dungeons and Dragons. That’s under-selling it considerably though. Imagine someone mixed The Princess Bride, Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal  with Carnivale, Time Bandits  and Pan’s Labyrinth and you get rough idea about how weird and wonderful this campaign can be.  It’s a beautifully illustrated and well thought out book. It looks like so much fun that more than one Dungeon Master has approached it with a little bit of trepidation. After all, you want to run the game really well so you get the most out of it. And this is where the Platinum Edition comes in.

Beadle & Grimm specialise in taking existing gaming products and completely re-designing them physically  to add extra props, tools, maps and other useful gear.  You get a lot of stuff in the Platinum Edition this is as much a celebration of setting and its world as it is a games supplement.  This edition comes in a large box (packed by goblins, according to the label on the side) and get very big red box that closes magnetically filled with goodies. You also get items that don’t fit in the red box, but we’ll get to those in a moment. Almost all of these items connect to the story itself, so be aware that they are mild spoilers ahead.

Opening the reassuringly solid box, you’ll see some stunning art on the inside and carved carry foam. We get a pamphlet introducing you to the set and a unicorn horn. Yes, that’s correct, tucked safely into the foam is horn of legendary creature. It’s a solid (and thankfully not sharp) thing, that looks like it’s been hacked off a real beastie. The sculpt has a lot of detail, it’s a mix of cream and gold and it looks like it’s been around a long time. It’s entirely intended to be handed out at a key point in the campaign to one of the lucky characters and they’ve nailed the feel of the thing; this is what we mean when talk about using props to generate immersion.

Digging in, there’s a folder containing various hand-out letters. These are produced to look like actual hand-written bits of parchment.  This theme is repeated throughout the collection; we get lots of different types of correspondence and notes and some of them are lovingly crumpled to really sell the idea that these things have come from a world of fantasy.

We get very well produced A4 maps in this folder which complement another part of this set that was too big to fit in the box. This set comes with maps, big and small. The A4 battle-maps are clearly intended as player hand-outs for the table. They’re places such as The Goblin Market, a Palace of Hearts Desire and the Carnival’s own Big Top. You also get poster-sized maps, which come in a very sturdy (and bright red) poster tube. Some of these are intended to be used with miniatures, but some of them are just designed to spark the imagination. There’s a gorgeous canvas map of the land of Prismeer that would good in a frame and a map of the Carnival itself produced on canvas paper. It’s all strong, high quality stuff.

Other ‘outside the box’ items include fairy wings and a dragon.  Specifically, the fairy wings are these lovely gossamer things of the sort you may have seen at delightful parties.  These represent the wings the characters get when they enter the Witchlight Carnival, and they’re fun and surprisingly comfy.  The dragon is a well produced plush of Sir Talavar, an actual fairy dragon they meet in the campaign. You can use this to represent the character or as an in-game carnival prize , or both.  It’s very cute, is quite pink and sparkly, comes with posable wings and has a moustache. It instantly put is in mind of Sir Didymus from the movie Labyrinth, which we are sure is intentional.

We also get a box of 20 miniatures, provided by Wizkids. They’ve picked all the key figures from the game, they go well with the posters and they’re pre-painted models. They look great, the Jabberwocky is especially crazy looking and the detail is fantastic.  Some of them tiny, others huge, but all of them evocative of the world your explore in this game.

Diving back into the big red box, we get ‘carnival style’ flyers and cards for events at the Witchlight Carnival. These look like the sort of thing you’d find at a magical reality spanning carnival that has Snail Races and mystical carousels, as well as a tools for Dungeon Masters to track various story events.  Another hand-out are actual tickets for the carnival. You can tear them/stamp them like real tickets and again, they feel like they’ve come from somewhere else.

They’re just big enough that your players will clutch them in their hands as their characters explore the carnival.

We also get wanted posters, notes, a poster for the carnival and so on.  There’s also a ‘sun and moon’ bag, of the sort you’d keep dice or jewellery in.  This again adds a physical thing to draw the players in during one of the more ‘theatrical’ scenes in the adventure. Inside the bag are ‘prompts’ written on little bits of paper, which will come in handy during that scene.

The box contains a special edition of the book, which rather than a hard-cover is divided into six soft-cover books. This used to be standard practice for RPG supplements back in the day and it’s one many gamers rather miss. The advantage of having the book divided into six lovingly reformatted sections is that you can the book round without worrying the players will open the wrong page. It also makes it easier to read in bed, if that’s your thing.

Talking of making the Dungeon Master’s life easier, the box also contains a referee’s screen – lovely picture on the side you point at the players and lots of useful charts relevant to the campaign. Again, it’s designed specifically for this entire experience.  We also get 60 Encounter cards, which put monster rules at the Dungeon Master’s finger tips.

As well as this, a deck of magic item cards is provided,  for ease of access during the game. On top of all that, there’s a collection of art cards pulled from the book, to make it easier to show your players exactly what a walking spoon (or giant sea serpent) looks like.

The box also has three ‘trinkets’ – a representation of the Witchlight Weathervane,  the Valor’s Call badge that features in a very cool and retro part of the campaign and ‘completion coin’, which is a token that can be used to indicate certain game mechanics, used as a D2 or just kept as a reminder of the campaign.

Oh, and finally, Beadle and Grimm have added some bonus encounters and some pre-generated characters. The encounters ‘smooth’ some of encounters in the core book, just in case your players decided to explore odder parts of the game and the pre-gens are very well suited for the entire adventure.

This is the best box B&G have produced thus far. It’s pricey, but you get a lot of stuff. When you consider that an adventure like Witchlight will take months to play and is intended to entertain three to six people, it’s well worth picking up, especially if you’re the sort of Dungeon Master with a very busy life but you do love to entertain your players. D&D is a game that requires nothing but your imagination, but if you can afford to splash out, it’s well worth it.

DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS RULES EXPANSION GIFT SET

Dungeons and Dragons Rules Expansion Gift Set  is an interesting choice for the first D&D ‘book’ of 2022. The set brings together three books in one handy slipcase. Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything and a new book,  Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse.

The first two add a variety of new rules to the game; extra classes, ways of handling magic, campaign modes and the like. Xanathar’s and Tasha’s complement each other quite well and are likely to be your next choice of book after the core rules. Monsters of the Multiverse combines two previous books,  Volo’s Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, it’s basically a fancy Monster Manual with extra rules to make it easier to play the more traditionally ‘monstrous races’.

Which brings us to the reason why this set exists in the first place; all of these books have had a slight revision. The stat blocks have been tidied up and the focus on elements that restrict creativity. If you want a culture of ‘good’ goblins in your game, the books no longer discourage you from doing this.  No race is inherently ‘evil’, it all depends on how you run your game. The rules are clearer and more accessible. This is a hint as to what the game will look like in the future.

Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition is currently the biggest Table Top RPG in the world and this iteration of the game has been around for roughly 8-years. That’s a long time for  rule-set, but given it’s popularity, you can appreciate that it’s producer, Wizards of The Coast, are reluctant to radically alter things.  A revision is coming in time for the games 50th anniversary in 2024, but it will likely be a slight iteration rather than a major overhaul.

The Dungeons and Dragons Rules Expansion Gift Set  gives us an indication what that will look like; more flexible rules designed to encourage more creative play and more inclusive language.  As a set, this is a solid gift / addition. The slipcase is sturdy and shiny, and you also get a Dungeon Masters Screen, in case you need a handy rules reference.

If you already have some of these books, it’s probably worth waiting until Monsters of the Multiverse comes out on its own later this year.  But as a way of suddenly upgrading your collection, it’s well worth a look.


NERF ULTRA Select

NERF toys are ridiculous fun. In case you don’t know what they are, they’re toy guns designed to throw soft foam darts. There’s something completely dumb about being any to shoot as many foam darts at your friends and it’s the sort of silliness that can be enjoyed by most people. Though NERF is mostly aimed at kids, it’s gained a huge fandom from all sorts of people, with a it’s own dedicated community of people collecting, modifying and playing with NERF.

The NERF Ultra Select is a chunky toy aimed at those with smaller hands and an inclination to mayhem. It’s striking orange and red and resembles the sort of thing you’d see in a low-budget military sci-fi movie. Shove on some skate pads and a bike helmet and you could probably use it in a very low budget of remake Starship Troopers.

The Ultra Select is a battery powered, magazine fed affair.  This means it makes a heck of noise when you pull the trigger. Each magazine holds ten darts and you can switch between magazines, so if you want to use different types of darts you can.

The pump action switches magazine, so you can pretend this you’re in an action movie. This is designed for NERF ULTRA darts, and the toy debuts a new silver dart which is apparently more accurate. Because pinpoint accuracy is absolutely what you demand when you’re peppering your co-worker with foam. Still, the new ULTRA ‘PINPOINT’ darts do seem to land where you want them too, which can be pretty funny.

The darts come out pretty quickly; not so fast that if you pull too hard you’ll empty the magazine, but quickly enough that you can make everyone dive for cover before hiding behind the sofa. It’s got a funky little sight built in, and space to add other NERF accessories if you really want to.

Design wise, it’s pretty easy to take apart and modify if that’s your thing. As always, a level of skill is required to paint these things. The mechanism inside the toy is very well designed and very safe, so think twice before adding any third-party mods. That said, it is the sort of NERF gun that creative adults will want to tinker with.

Overall, a great addition to the NERF arsenal and certainly the best ULTRA out there.

 

Scalextric: Urban Rampage

Scalextric have dipped their toes into lovely movie inspired toys recently,  with the likes of The Batmobile, The DeLorean and even the Only Fools and Horses Reliant Robin being toys that can either be popped on the shelf to display or put into a Scalextric race track.

If you’ve been lured back into slot car racing by the cool genre cars, you may be tempted to actually get a track to run the cars on.  If you don’t know what that is; it’s a toy car you put on an electrified track and then you race it as fast as the trigger based controller will let you. Fun for all the family.

Urban Rampage is a starter set that features two ‘supercars’, a Rasio and a GT. They’re pretty accurate as far as toy slot cars though, though they don’t quite have the same attention to detail you’d get from the more specialist pieces. Instead they’re cool looking cars suitable for a starter and something that fans won’t be too upset about if they get played with many times. Still, they’re fairly robust, for toy slot cars.

There’s enough track to do a figure of 8 style configuration, as well as some equally bendy ones. There’s just enough here to have a track that can catapult the car off the track into the furniture. It’s magnetised so you do have to be going some to fling the supercars into the void, however.  There’s a lap counter, in case you get so excited you forget to count.  The whole thing runs off mains electricity, and it’s pretty simple to set-up. It’s also pretty easy to expand.

Scalextric is a classic toy and one that will delight car fans of all ages. If you’re looking for something both fun and retro this Christmas, Urban Rampage is a great place to start.

Micro Scalextric James Bond Set ‘No Time To Die’

There’s something about Bond that evokes a sense of nostalgia. Bond himself can easily be seen as a piece of a past that never was, brought to life. Bond and fancy cars have always been synonymous with each other, you simply can’t have 007 without a fast car.

So of course, it’s a perfect candidate for Scalextric tie-in. The Micro Scalextric James Bond Set ‘No Time To Die’  is clearly aimed kids of all ages.   It’s a compact little piece. It’s Micro Scalextric which means the entire thing is powered by AA batteries and that makes it a lot safer for curious fingers. It’s intended for anyone old enough to play with toy cars.

You get two Micro Scalextrix cars.  An Aston Martin DB5 and the Jaguar XF. These are nice looking toy cars; they aren’t as detailed as some as the larger pieces available, but they aren’t meant too be; they’re intended to be handled and played with, rather than mostly look pretty on the shelf.  They do look the part however, thanks to clever sculpts and a smart paint job. The windows are tinted and they connect to the tracks with a nice magnetic pull. They’re surprisingly heavy for small toy cars. Don’t under-estimate them though, they’ll whizz across the tracks super-fast.

The tracks slot together easily (it’s almost like it’s child’s play).  The track is over 4 meters long in total, though you’re going to be configuring it into various runs and curves. You can even do a loop-the-loop, which is just silly fun. The hand controllers are intended to be comfortable in smaller hands, though adults will find them pretty simple to use; they do limit the speed to an extent so combined with the magnetic features of the cars, you’re unlikely to fire an Aston Martin out across the living room. It’s fun to try though.

This set will not make you a secret agent, but it will make you whistle the famous theme tune and quote various lines from the movies, often in a slurred Scottish accent.  Slap on your favourite Bond movie, set up this (very portable) toy racing game and zap those cars around the track until the batteries run out. Fun for family, friends and the secret agent in your life.

 

Scalextric – Back to the Future Part 2 – DeLorean

The DeLorean from Back to the Future is one of the most iconic vehicles in cinematic history.  The modified DMC car sees Doc Brown and Marty McFly through some rather memorable adventures, all with a highly distinctive sense of style.  Obviously it’s a perfect candidate to be made into a Scalextric replica. Not only does it fill you a lovely sense of nostalgia, you can also race it against  the Batmobile, or any other Scalextric car you may own.

It doesn’t fly, it’s a slot car. Also the gull wing doors don’t open, because the doors don’t normally open on Scalextric vehicle.  Nor does it go back in time if you drive the vehicle very, very fast. Instead what happens when you drive as fast as it will go is that you have a lot of fun, though as this is slot car racing, there is a chance the thing will fly off at a bend and scare the cat.  The lights do turn on when you race it and it does travel very smoothly. It’s light and solid enough to be competitive.

And yes, whilst testing this at Starburst Towers we did find ourselves saying ‘Great Scott!’ a lot and quoting various bits of the movie trilogy. That’s the point of this beautifully detailed toy; it will let relive the movies through play, no matter how old you are.

It is very, very highly detailed. You can see Marty McFly at the steering wheel through the window. It features the Mr Fusion energy reactor at the back and the various power lines and other modifications that the Doc made to vehicle. It has all the ridiculous flair of the classic DeLorean car as well as the eye-catching fun of the movie car.

The model comes in a handy display case, and you can lock it down for ease of transport. The case is mostly transparent but pops open easily. It looks lovely on a shelf and is just about secure enough to keep it safe from toddlers and pets. The vehicle comes with all the modern Scalextric features; it ready for a traditional set-up but if you want to go digital or wireless, it’s completely compatible with those systems.

It’s fast. It’s fun. It’s very silly.  This would make an exceptional gift for the older, highly-nostalgic sci-fi fan in your life (or better yet, a great Christmas gift for yourself).

 

Dungeons and Dragons Phunny Plush

Dungeons and Dragons has a number of creatures and beasties that are unique to the game. These terrifying  creatures  are steadily becoming more iconic over the years, becoming the default mascots for franchise with no central characters.

Of course, they are no monsters that can’t be turned into cute and adorable versions of themselves, especially when the geniuses at Kidrobot are involved. We previously saw this producer of cute and silly things turn the god-like beings from Magic The Gathering into cuddly beasties. With D&D’s horrors, it’s safe to say they’ve out done themselves.

They are four pieces in the initial range.  They’re all around the 7 inch scale; small enough to fit on a shelve or desktop, but not so small they’ll get easily lost, or so large they’ll just sit in the corner and never get hugged.

The Snowy Owl Bear is the most obvious choice for a plush. This nasty hybrid of both owl and bear is a tricky encounter in D&D, but  as both these creatures are quite cute, mixing the two just makes it all the more cuddly. The Snowy Owl Bear is a relatively new monster (it first appeared in IceWind Dale Rime of The Frost Maiden) but the idea of half-polar-bear, half-snowy-owl abomination has certainly caught the imagination of the fans. This little cub is very soft to touch and as a neat touch, has a fluffy tail.

Next up is the Mimic, an odd choice for a plush toy, though it’s certainly iconic in terms of D&D. The idea is that this is a normal treasure chest that suddenly transforms into a huge monster with teeth. This plush is in full-on monster form; it’s many eyes are open, little spikes jut out of It’s head, it’s gnashy teeth are in plain site and it’s enormous tentacle like tongue is hanging out. It’s meant to have slimy maw and in this case the slime is a soft elastic material that let’s you open and close the lid. We invite you to make nom nom noises as you do so. It’s a fun little toy, perhaps the most suitable to desks and workstations in the range. Not exactly cute, but fun.

The Beholder is a flying eyeball with tentacles that also have eyeballs on them. They’re very D&D, so much so that Disney needed a license to feature one in its movie,  Onward. The Phunny version is more cute that horrifying. It’s an eyecatching pink, for a start, and it’s smiling. (Though you can see it’s fangs). It looks a little angry, like you’ve stolen it’s favourite candy from from it. The tentacles can be moved around (they have some sort of wire inside them), beaming that you can have all sorts of funny with the way it looks.

Finally, but by no means least, is the displacer beast. At first glance, this looks like a plush black kitten.  It’s got a little mouse in it’s adorable mouth. You then realise it’s got two weird tentacles hanging out of it’s back and it has six legs.  This is very cleverly done; Displacer Beasts are meant to be dangerous and deceptive, and this kitten  looks the part. If you’re running Wild Beyond The Witchlight, this is perfect prop for Star, the juvenile Displacer Beast that features in that game (and on the front cover).  It really is very cute, mostly because it’s got huge eyes, is soft but also creepy. Like the beholder, the tentacles can be moved thanks to some sort of wire inside, so you can make it look as scary as you wish.

Overall, these are great stocking fillers for fans of D&D or people who just like silly but slightly spooky stuff. They will be available via Wizkids or your friendly local games shop in time for Christmas.