Walking Heads, Swamp Lords and the Cock O' Doom: Valley of the Four Winds III

The spirit of Hieronymus Bosch was flexed in the Valley of the Four Winds miniatures range with the Grand Wizard, the dourly ascending fellow below, and his bizarre minions.

These two charmers are possibly the only known miniature castings of the gryllus monster I wrote about in the fall. Seriously wanting one of these!

Among the other Bosch-inspired oddities are this old woman changing into fire - probably a glass cannon-type monster, 1 HD, AC 9[10], unarmored, if it gets into close combat range starts burning for 2d6 damage/round. Or, scarier still, she changes into a small fire elemental when "killed"?

And, of course, the giant, human-faced Cock O' Doom and its Faceless Rider.

The Cock looks to be about a 4+4 HD critter, AC 6[13], MV 18 or 15 with rider, pecks for d8. It can crow at will, creating a magical fear effect within 60' (make a Will/Spell/WIS save to be immune henceforth). If the crowing happens at the exact moment of dawn, the effect is death instead. The Faceless Rider is either an unseen servant decoy, or a spectre. Bet you wish you knew which.

The only figures in this line I actually owned, and painted with lurid aqua skin, gold ornaments, and magenta loincloths, were the Swamp Lord minions. These cruel, frog-legged creatures liked to decorate with severed heads. The one on the left is also carrying a head-shaped bowl and no prizes for guessing what goes in it.

Stat-wise, they seem best represented by sahuagin, with the breathing apparatuses on their backs allowing them to range overland for extended campaigns. If struck from behind with an odd numbered damage amount, the aerolungs are damaged, and the Swamp Lord loses morale and beats it back to the nearest breathable water.

Before closing out this series, I also want to say that in the past month or so, many of these figures appear to have been recast and are on offer from Minifigs. These are mostly Swamp Lords but you might miss their more extensive offering of Four Winds skeletons on a different page. Perhaps with more purchases, more figures will go back into production?

Miniatures Flashback: Valley of the Four Winds II

The Valley of the Four Winds miniatures showed a lot of inventiveness in dealing with some of their "factions." For example, the Pixies had rat riders, a figure carrying a puffball on a "spore stick" (hit to force a Body/Poison/CON save, or paralyzed and infected with a disease which kills in d4 days) and a slingshot-like catapult, which probably needed a rubber band and some kind of missile to model correctly:

You can treat this weapon as a normal sling, perhaps, with +2 to hit owing to the direct aim and fixed pivot.

The Pixies' foes, Forest Orcs, didn't quite work for me with their chainmail onesies:

If the Orcs had beards, the dwarfs definitely reversed roles even further, with no beards themselves but all manner of weird noses and animal-like snouts:

 


In particular, Dwarf King Gondemar (on the left) has me thinking about the one-of-a-kind "funny animal" character in fantasy ... Snarf, Cerebus, Howard the Duck. How many campaigns dare to include such a nonesuch adventurer with a backstory nobody dares ask?

Now, the best developed  Four Winds minis were the skeletons, which I'll venture to crown as the top set of skeletal miniatures ever devised. Modeled after Breughel's Triumph of Death, the undead horde made a most impressive parade, as assembled for this grainy White Dwarf magazine ad:

Not just the bell, but gibbets, reapers, skeletal cavalry and death wagon, coffin bearers, skeletons menacing the living, Spanish-style penitents in pointy hoods, skeletal monks in hooded robes. And not just skeletons, but monk-robed wraiths, witches, dancing demons and imps, and the devils, Beelzebub, all dressed up for a witches' sabbath ...

and this demented-looking Satan.

Few lines of miniatures captured the obsessions of pre-modern folk beliefs as accurately. Even their crudeness of sculpting, in a way, brought the Four Winds series into line with the bas-reliefs and daubings of the Middle Ages themselves.

Next: Closing out with the Grand Wizard, the Swamp Lords, and information on the resurrection of the miniatures line.

Miniatures Flashback: Valley of the Four Winds I

Miniatures shopping in the early 80's was a strange and fascinating time. The relatively lumpish sculpts of Heritage, Grenadier and smaller companies were giving way to crisper lines like Ral Partha. But there was plenty of creativity and raw vigor to go around. I ogled more miniatures in the shops than I actually could buy or paint. A few lines, though, stand out as legendary, impressive, and still traded on Ebay. In this irregular series I go back over a few of them.

Valley of the Four Winds was a short-lived world in the Games Workshop line, with an epic board wargame created by Lewis Pulsipher, serial fiction in White Dwarf by one Rowland Flynn, and figures (but as far as I know no miniatures rules for them) created by Minifigs and attributed here to sculptor Dick Higgs. While the world contained orcs, pixies and dwarves, much of the feel was Renaissance rather than Medieval, with obvious nods to imaginative painting of the Flemish school - Bosch, Breughel.

Courtesy of the Lost Minis Wiki we can relive some of the stranger and more impressive pieces over the next few posts.

One thing the series excelled at were elaborate multi-piece command sets. The skeletons had their Great Bell:

The Wind Demon got hauled around in a chariot - you'd think he could
fly:

While the Lord of the Swamps got carried:

Another feature of the series were the kind of grisly, unique scenery pieces that begged to have dungeon features designed around them. Take, for instance...

The man trapped in a coffin with rats. I think he can be rescued, but will die without serious healing and Cure Disease. It turns out he is a wealthy merchant whose family disowned him for snitching on his brother, the competition, to the revenue authorities, and who put him in this situation as a terribly appropriate revenge. He will hand out a 5000$ reward to the group that can save his life.

The giant fire wheel. 1d6 fire damage if you don't jump out of the way in time (Speed/breath weapon/DEX save.) 50$ for the wheels and alchemical compounds that make it burn sustainedly.

Did I say Breughel? Goya makes an appearance in this "Body speared on tree."

And few miniatures lines would dare to come out with a giant ... woodlouse. HD 4, AC 3 [16], MV 6, attack 1d4, can curl up and roll at 12" rate (no attack possible) for AC 0 [19].

Next: The factions of the Valley.