This Sunday I’m thakful for the Fiend Folio.
Recently I’ve been thinking — as one does — about the denizens of the Fiend Folio. Specifically the Githyanki and the Drow.
Years ago I spent a few years collecting all the Citadel AD&D Githyanki. They’re still the best that have ever been made.
Then Otherworld Miniatures released their Drow and I bought the whole range of them as well. Much more recently, Crooked Dice have thankfully taken over and re-released Otherworld’s Drow. So I backed their Kickstarter to round out my ranks of Dark Elves.
Over the past year I’ve been tracking down various Githyanki STLs on My Mini Factory and ordering a few Drow models from Reaper. My goal was to build up to 24-to-36-ish figs for each race so I could field warbands for Dragon Rampant. Even then I still hadn’t thought of the two necessarily being opponents.
Then came the Firenewts. Now, quite a few years ago I’d heard tell that Otherworld had produced but not released a figure of a Firenewt. I wrote and asked if I could buy a few. Three were soon in my possession. Then just a few years ago I heard that Otherworld was shutting down. So I wrote again and got my hands on another nine. And there they stalled. Until …
A few months ago Skull & Crown Miniatures announced they were going to release a small range of Firenewts. OK. Now the idea hit me.
Fiend Folio Fight Fest!
Dragon Rampant battles with races and monsters drawn from the Fiend Folio only. It’s perfect. It’s Gygax (Drow) versus Stross (Githyanki). It’s America (add Bullywugs) against Britain (add Firenewts). It’s chocolate and peanut butter!
The good thing about Drow and Githyanki is that you don’t need very many of them to create a Dragon Rampant warband. If you draw from the game lore for both races, each one of them is a pretty serious customer in a fight. It’s very easy to play the whole force as reduced model units. I’ve done that with my 15 Citadel Githyanki a few times, running them at two Strength Points each. And all their units have some kind of range attack as they make such extensive use of psionics and magic. Same goes for the Drow with their spells, hand crossbows and atlatls.
By way of allies, I have a half-dozen of Otherworld’s Bullywugs and a Fog Giant from Center Stage. The latter company’s ranges are now produced by 5th Field Fantasy Miniatures. They also make a nice Mountain Giant I have my eye on.
Wizkids make (made?) Death Dogs, Reaper makes a Hellcat and some Svirfneblin. Citadel made Meazels, as did Otherworld. Both Citadel and Reaper made/make Norkers.
There are even a couple of Flumphs out there!
And I should acknowledge that this might not have come together if I hadn’t been carrying around in my head the great ideas from these three blog posts about using the Fiend Folio as the core of a setting for a dark and gritty version of D&D:
- International League of Fiend Foliasts
- Fiend Folio as Implied Setting
- Fiend Folio = Monsters & Deities, Unearthed Arcana = Spells?
Oh, I almost forgot! Both Reaper and 5th Field make Flail Snails!
